



Bonk 



*H 



1C^ 



(^TYU^^^ 




CS £S 




LAYS 



ANCIENT ROME. 



BY 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, 



SEVENTH EDITION. 



LONDON: 
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 

PATERNOSTER-HOW. 
1846. 




London : 

Printed by A. Spottiswoode, 

N e w- Street- Squ are. 



PREFACE. 



That what is called the history of the Kings 
and early Consuls of Rome is to a great ex- 
tent fabulous, few scholars have, since the 
time of Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is cer- 
tain that, more than three hundred and sixty 
years after the date ordinarily assigned for the 
foundation of the city, the public records were, 
with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the 
Gauls. It is certain that the oldest annals of 
the commonwealth were compiled more than a 
century and a half after the destruction of the 
records. It is certain, therefore, that the great 
Latin writers of the Augustan age did not 
possess those materials, without which a trust- 
worthy account of the infancy of the republic 
could not possibly be framed. Those writers 
own, indeed, that the chronicles to which they 



4 PREFACE. 

had access were filled with battles that were 
never fought, and Consuls that were never 
inaugurated ; and we have abundant proof that, 
in these chronicles, events of the greatest im- 
portance, such as the issue of the war with 
Porsena, and the issue of the war with Brennus, 
were grossly misrepresented. Under these cir- 
cumstances a wise man will look with great 
suspicion on the legend which has come down 
to us. He will, perhaps, be inclined to regard 
the princes who are said to have founded the 
civil and religious institutions of Rome, the son 
of Mars, and the husband of Egeria, as mere 
mythological personages, of the same class with 
Perseus and Ixion. As he draws nearer and 
nearer to the confines of authentic history, he 
will become less and less hard of belief. He 
will admit that the most important parts of the 
narrative have some foundation in truth. But 
he will distrust almost all the details, not only 
because they seldom rest on any solid evidence, 
but also because he will constantly detect in 
them, even when they are within the limits of 



PREFACE. 5 

physical possibility, that peculiar character, more 
easily understood than denned, which distin- 
guishes the creations of the imagination from 
the realities of the world in which we live. 

The early history of Rome is indeed far more 
poetical than any thing else in Latin literature. 
The loves of the Vestal and the God of War, the 
cradle laid among the reeds of Tiber, the fig- 
tree, the she-wolf, the shepherd's cabin, the re- 
cognition, the fratricide, the rape of the Sabines, 
the death of Tarpeia, the fall of Hostus Hostilius, 
the struggle of Mettus Curtius through the 
marsh, the women rushing with torn raiment and 
dishevelled hair between their fathers and their 
husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa and the 
Nymph by the well in the sacred grove, the fight 
of the three Romans and the three Albans, the 
purchase of the Sibylline books, the crime of 
Tullia, the simulated madness of Brutus, the 
ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the 
Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic 
actions of Horatius Codes, of Scsevola, and of 
Clcelia, the battle of Regillus won by the aid of 



b PREFACE. 

Castor and Pollux, the defence of Cremera, the 
touching story of Coriolanus, the still more 
touching story of Virginia, the wild legend about 
the draining of the Alban lake, the combat 
between Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, 
are among the many instances which will at once 
suggest themselves to every reader. 

In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of 
fine imagination, these stories retain much of 
their genuine character. Nor could even the 
tasteless Dionysius distort and mutilate them 
into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite of 
him, through the dreary pedantry of his eleven 
books. It is discernible in the most tedious and 
in the most superficial modern works on the 
early times of Rome. It enlivens the dulness of 
the Universal History, and gives a charm to the 
most meagre abridgments of Goldsmith. 

Even in the age of Plutarch there were dis- 
cerning men who rejected the popular account 
of the foundation of Rome, because that account 
appeared to them to have the air, not of a history, 
but of a romance or a drama. Plutarch, who was 



PREFACE. i 

displeased at their incredulity, had nothing better 
to say in reply to their arguments than that 
chance sometimes turns poet, and produces trains 
of events not to be distinguished from the most 
elaborate plots which are constructed by art.* 
But though the existence of a poetical element 
in the early history of the Great City was de- 
tected so many ages ago, the first critic who 
distinctly saw from what source that poetical 
element had been derived was James Perizonius, 
one of the most acute and learned antiquaries of 
the seventeenth century. His theory, which, in 
his own days, attracted little or no notice, was 
revived in the present generation by Niebuhr, a 
man who would have been the first writer of his 
time, if his talent for communicating truths had 

* "Y7T0TTT0V fiev ivioiQ iarl to SpafiariKov ical TrXafffiarddtQ' ov 
del Sk airiGTEiv, rfjv tvx*\v opuvrag, o'Iojv Troii]fia.ru)v Srjfiiovpyog 
son. — Plut Rom. viii. This remarkable passage has been more 
grossly misinterpreted than any other in the Greek language, 
where the sense was so obvious. The Latin version of Cruserius, 
the French version of Amyot, the old English version by several 
hands, and the later English version by Langhorne, are all equally 
destitute of every trace of the meaning of the original. None of 
the translators saw even that -Koirwia is a poem. They all render 
it an event. 



PREFACE. 



borne any proportion to his talent for investi- 
gating them. It has been adopted by several 
eminent scholars of our own country, parti- 
cularly by the Bishop of St. David's, by Pro- 
fessor Maiden, and by the lamented Arnold. It 
appears to be now generally received by men 
conversant with classical antiquity; and indeed 
it rests on such strong proofs, both internal and 
external, that it will not be easily subverted. 
A popular exposition of this theory, and of the 
evidence by which it is supported, may not be 
without interest even for readers who are un- 
acquainted with the ancient languages. 

The Latin literature which has come down to 
us is of later date than the commencement of 
the second Punic war, and consists almost ex- 
clusively of works fashioned on Greek models. 
The Latin metres, heroic, elegiac, lyric, and 
dramatic, are of Greek origin. The best Latin 
epic poetry is the feeble echo of the Iliad and 
Odyssey. The best Latin eclogues are imitations 
of Theocritus. The plan of the most finished 
didactic poem in the Latin tongue was taken 



PREFACE, » 

from Hesiod. The Latin tragedies are bad 
copies of the master-pieces of Sophocles and 
Euripides. The Latin comedies are free trans- 
lations from Demophilus, Menander, and Apollo- 
dorus. The Latin philosophy was borrowed, 
without alteration, from the Portico and the 
Academy ; and the great Latin orators constantly 
proposed to themselves as patterns the speeches 
of Demosthenes and Lysias. 

But there was an earlier Latin literature, a 
literature truly Latin, which has wholly perished, 
which had, indeed, almost wholly perished long 
before those whom we are in the habit of regarding 
as the greatest Latin writers were born. That 
literature abounded with metrical romances, 
such as are found in every country where there 
is much curiosity and intelligence, but little 
reading and writing. All human beings, not 
utterly savage, long for some information about 
past times, and are delighted by narratives which 
present pictures to the eye of the mind. But 
it is only in very enlightened communities that 
books are readily accessible. Metrical com- 



10 PEEFACE. 

position, therefore, which, in a highly civilised 
nation, is a mere luxury, is, in nations imper- 
fectly civilised, almost a necessary of life, and 
is valued less on account of the pleasure which it 
gives to the ear, than on account of the help which 
it gives to the memory. A man who can invent 
or embellish an interesting story, and put it into 
a form which others may easily retain in their 
recollection, will always be highly esteemed by 
a people eager for amusement and information, 
but destitute of libraries. Such is the origin 
of ballad-poetry, a species of composition which 
scarcely ever fails to spring up and nourish in 
every society, at a certain point in the progress 
towards refinement. Tacitus informs us that 
songs were the only memorials of the past which 
the ancient Germans possessed. We learn from 
Lucan and from Ammianus Marcellinus that the 
brave actions of the ancient Gauls were com- 
memorated in the verses of Bards. During many 
ages, and through many revolutions, minstrelsy 
retained its influence over both the Teutonic 
and the Celtic race. The vengeance exacted by 



PEEFACE. 1 1 

the spouse of Attila for the murder of Siegfried 
was celebrated in rhymes, of which Germany 
is still justly proud. The exploits of Athel- 
stane were commemorated by the Anglo-Saxons, 
and those of Canute by the Danes, in rude 
poems, of which a few fragments have come 
down to us. The chants of the Welsh harpers 
preserved, through ages of darkness, a faint and 
doubtful memory of Arthur. In the Highlands 
of Scotland may still be gleaned some relics 
of the old songs about Cuthullin and Fingal. 
The long struggle of the Servians against the 
Ottoman power was recorded in lays full of 
martial spirit. We learn from Herrera that, 
when a Peruvian Inca died, men of skill were 
appointed to celebrate him in verses, which all 
the people learned by heart, and sang in public 
on days of festival. The feats of Kurroglou, 
the great freebooter of Turkistan, recounted in 
ballads composed by himself, are known in every 
village of Northern Persia. Captain Beechey 
heard the bards of the Sandwich Islands recite 
the heroic achievements of Tamehameha, the most 



12 PREFACE. 

illustrious of their kings. Mungo Park found in 
the heart of Africa a class of singing men, the 
only annalists of their rude tribes, and heard 
them tell the story of the victory which Darnel, 
the negro prince of the Jaloffs, won over Ab- 
dulkader, the Mussulman tyrant of Foota Torra. 
This species of poetry attained a high degree 
of excellence among the Castilians, before they 
began to copy Tuscan patterns. It attained 
a still higher degree of excellence among the 
English and the Lowland Scotch, during the 
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. 
But it reached its full perfection in ancient 
Greece; for there can be no doubt that the 
great Homeric poems are generically ballads, 
though widely distinguished from all other bal- 
lads, and, indeed, from almost all other human 
compositions, by transcendent merit. 

As it is agreeable to general experience that, 
at a certain stage in the progress of society, bal- 
lad-poetry should flourish, so is it also agreeable 
to general experience that, at a subsequent stage 
in the progress of society, ballad-poetry should 



PREFACE. 13 

be undervalued and neglected. Knowledge ad- 
vances: mariners change: great foreign models 
of composition are studied and imitated. The 
phraseology of the old minstrels becomes obso- 
lete. Their versification, which, having received 
its laws only from the ear, abounds in irregu- 
larities, seems licentious and uncouth. Their 
simplicity appears beggarly when compared with 
the quaint forms and gaudy colouring of such 
artists as Cowley and Gongora. The ancient 
lays, unjustly despised by the learned and polite, 
linger for a time in the memory of the vulgar, 
and are at length too often irretrievably lost. 
We cannot wonder that the ballads of Rome 
should have altogether disappeared, when we re- 
member how very narrowly, in spite of the in- 
vention of printing, those of our own country 
and those of Spain escaped the same fate. There 
is, indeed, little doubt that oblivion covers many 
English songs equal to any that were published 
by Bishop Percy, and many Spanish songs as 
good as the best of those which have been so 
happily translated by Mr. Lockhart. Eighty 



14 PREFACE. 

years ago England possessed only one tattered 
copy of Cliilde Waters and Sir Cauline, and 
Spain only one tattered copy of the noble poem 
of the Cid. The snuff of a candle, or a mis- 
chievous dog, might in a moment have deprived 
the world for ever of any of those fine compo- 
sitions. Sir Walter Scott, who united to the 
fire of a great poet the minute curiosity and pa- 
tient diligence of a great antiquary, was but 
just in time to save the precious relics of the 
Minstrelsy of the Border. In Germany, the lay 
of the Nibelungs had been long utterly forgotten 
when, in the eighteenth century, it was, for the 
first time, printed from a manuscript in the old 
library of a noble family. In truth, the only 
people who, through their whole passage from 
simplicity to the highest civilisation, never for a 
moment ceased to love and admire their old bal- 
lads, were the Greeks. 

That the early Romans should have had bal- 
lad-poetry, and that this poetry should have 
perished, is, therefore, not strange. It would, on 
the contrary, have been strange if these things 



PREFACE. 15 

had not come to pass ; and we should be justified 
in pronouncing them highly probable, even if we 
had no direct evidence on the subject. But we 
have direct evidence of unquestionable authority. 
Ennius, who flourished in the time of the 
Second Punic War, was regarded in the Augus- 
tan age as the father of Latin poetry. He was, in 
truth, the father of the second school of Latin 
poetry, the only school of which the works have 
descended to us. But from Ennius himself we 
learn that there were poets who stood to him 
in the same relation in which the author of the 
romance of Count Alarcos stood to Garcilaso, or 
the author of the " Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode " 
to Lord Surrey. Ennius speaks of verses which 
the Fauns and the Bards were wont to chant in 
the old time, when none had yet studied the 
graces of speech, when none had yet climbed the 
peaks sacred to the Goddesses of Grecian song. 
" Where," Cicero mournfully asks, ' ; are those 
old verses now?"* 

* " Quid ? Nostri veteres versus ubi sunt ? 

' Quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant, 



16 PREFACE. 

Contemporary with Ennius was Quintus Fa- 
bius Pictor, the earliest of the Roman annalists. 
His account of the infancy and youth of Romu- 
lus and Remus has been preserved by Dionysius, 
and contains a very remarkable reference to the 
ancient Latin poetry. Fabius says that, in his 
time, his countrymen were still in the habit of 
singing ballads about the Twins. " Even in the 
hut of Faustulus," — so these old lays appear to 
have run, — "the children of Rhea and Mars were, 
in port and in spirit, not like unto swineherds or 

Cum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat, 

Nee dicti studiosus erat.' " 

Cic. in Bruto, cap. xviii. 
The Muses, it should be observed, are Greek divinities. The 
Italian Goddesses of verse were the Camcenaa. At a later period, the 
appellations were used indiscriminately ; but in the age of Ennius 
there was probably a distinction. In the epitaph of Nasvius, who 
was the representative of the old Italian school of poetry, the Ca- 
moenae, not the Muses, are represented as grieving for the loss of 
their votary. The " Musarum scopuli " are evidently the peaks of 
Parnassus. 

Scaliger, in a note on Varro (De Lingua Latina, lib. vi.), sug- 
gests, with great ingenuity, that the Fauns, who were represented 
by the superstition of later ages as a race of monsters, half gods 
and half brutes, may really have been a" class of men who exercised 
in Latium, at a very remote period, the same functions which be- 
longed to the Magians in Persia and to the Bards in Gaul. 



PREFACE. 17 

cowherds, but such that men might well guess 
them to be of the blood of Kings and Gods." * 

* Ok $e avSpioOevrtg yivovrai, Kara re a&ojaiv ixoprprjg /cat (ppovrj/ia- 
rog ojkov, ov cvotyoptolg /cai f3ovKo\oig eoiKoreg, ciW o'iovq av rig 
d^ahaue rovg ti; fiaffiktiov re <pvvrag yevovg, Kai citto Saipovuiv arropcig 
yevscrOai vofxiZojikvovg, wg iv rolg varpioig vjivoic into 'Pojfiaiojv en ical 
vvv aoerai. — Dion. Hal. i. 79. This passage has sometimes been 
cited as if Dionysius had been speaking in his own person, and 
had, Greek as he was, been so industrious or so fortunate as to 
discover some valuable remains of that early Latin poetry which 
the greatest Latin writers of his age regretted as hopelessly lost. 
Such a supposition is highly improbable ; and indeed it seems clear 
from the context that Dionysius, as Reiske and other editors evi- 
dently thought, was merely quoting from Fabius Pictor. The 
whole passage has the air of an extract from an ancient chronicle, 
and is introduced by the words, Koivrog /xiv $a£wg, u JliKrwp Xtyofxe- 
vog, rfjos ypcupit. 

Another argument may be urged which seems to deserve con- 
sideration. The author of the passage in question mentions a 
thatched hut which, in his time, stood between the summit of 
Mount Palatine and the Circus. This hut, he says, was built by 
Romulus, and was constantly kept in repair at the public charge, 
but never in any respect embellished. Now, in the age of Dionysius 
there certainly was at Rome a thatched hut, said to have been that 
of Romulus. But this hut, as we learn from Vitruvius, stood, not 
near the Circus, but in the Capitol. (Vit. ii. 1.) If, therefore, we 
iinderstand Dionysius to speak in his own person, we can reconcile 
his statement with that of Vitruvius only by supposing that there 
were at Rome, in the Augustan age, two thatched huts, both be- 
lieved to have been built by Romulus, and both carefully repaired, 
and held in high honour. The objections to such a supposition 
seem to be strong. Neither Dionysius nor Vitruvius speaks of 
more than one such hut. Dio Cassius informs us that twice, during 
the long administration of Augustus, the hut of Romulus caught 



18 PREFACE. 

Cato the Censor, who also lived in the days of 
the Second Punic War, mentioned this lost lite- 
rature in his lost work on the antiquities of his 
country. Many ages, he said, before his time, 

fire, (xlviii. 43. liv. 29.) Had there been two such huts, would he 
not have told us of which he spoke ? An English historian would 
hardly give an account of a fire at Queen's College without saying 
whether it was at Queen's College, Oxford, or at Queen's College, 
Cambridge. Marcus Seneca, Macrobius, and Conon, a Greek 
writer from whom Photius has made large extracts, mention only 
one hut of Romulus, that in the Capitol. (M. Seneca, Contr. i. 6. ; 
Macrobius, Sat. i. 15. ; Photius, Bill. 186.) Ovid, Livy, Petronius, 
Valerius Maximus, Lucius Seneca, and St. Jerome, mention only 
one hut of Romulus, without specifying the site. {Ovid, Fasti, hi. 
183.; Liv. v. 53. ; Petronius, Fragm.; Vol. Max.'w. 4.; L. Seneca, 
Consolatio ad Helviam ; D. Hieron. ad Paulinianum de Didymo.) 

The whole difficulty is removed, if we suppose that Dionysius 
was merely quoting Fabius Pictor. Nothing is more probable 
than that the cabin, which in the time of Fabius stood near the 
Circus, might, long before the age of Augustus, have been trans- 
ported to the Capitol, as the place fittest, by reason both of its 
safety and of its sanctity, to contain so precious a relic. 

The language of Plutarch confirms this hypothesis. He de- 
scribes, with great precision, the spot where Romulus dwelt, on the 
slope of Mount Palatine leading to the Circus ; but he says not a 
word implying that the dwelling was still to be seen there. Indeed, 
his expressions imply that it was no longer there. The evidence 
of Solinus is still more to the point. He, like Plutarch, describes 
the spot where Romulus had resided, and says expressly that the hut 
had been there, but that in his time it was there no longer. The 
site, it is certain, was well remembered ; and probably retained its 
old name, as Charing Cross and the Haymarket have done. This 
is probably the explanation of the words, " casa Romuli," in Victor's 
description of the Tenth Region of Rome, under Valentinian. 



PREFACE. 19 

there were ballads in praise of illustrious men ; 
and these ballads it was the fashion for the guests 
at banquets to sing in turn while the piper 
played. " Would," exclaims Cicero, " that we 
still had the old ballads of which Cato speaks ! " * 
Valerius Maximus gives us exactly similar in- 
formation, without mentioning his authority, and 
observes that the ancient Roman ballads were 
probably of more benefit to the young than all 
the lectures of the Athenian schools, and that to 
the influence of the national poetry were to be 
ascribed the virtues of such men as Camillus and 
Fabricius. f 

* Cicero refers twice to this important passage in Cato's Anti- 
quities : — " Gravissimus auctor in ' Originibus ' dixit Cato, morem 
apud rnajores hunc epularum fuisse, ut deinceps, qui accubarent, 
canerent ad tibiam clarorum Yirorum laudes atque virtutes. Ex quo 
perspicuum est, et cantus turn fuisse rescriptos vocum sonis, et 
carmina." — Tusc. Qucest. iv. 2. Again : " Utinam exstarent ilia 
carmina, quae, multis sasculis ante suam astatem, in epulis esse can- 
titata a singulis convivis de clarorum virorum laudibus, in ' Origi- 
nibus' scriptum reliquit Cato." — Brutus, cap. xix, 

f " Majores natu in conviviis ad tibias egregia superiorum opera 
carmine comprebensa pangebant, quo ad ea imitanda juventutem 
alacriorem redderent. . . . Quas Atbenas, quam scbolam, quas 
alienigena studia huic domesticas disciplina? prastulerim ? Inde 
oriebantur Camilli, Scipiones, Fabricii, Marcelli, Fabii." — Vol. 
Max. ii. 1. 



20 PREFACE. 

Varro, whose authority on all questions con- 
nected with the antiquities of his country is 
entitled to the greatest respect, tells us that at 
banquets it was once the fashion for boys to sing, 
sometimes with and sometimes without instru- 
mental music, ancient ballads in praise of men 
of former times. These young performers, he 
observes, were of unblemished character, a cir- 
cumstance which he probably mentioned because, 
among the Greeks, and indeed in his time among 
the Romans also, the morals of singing boys 
were in no high repute. * 

The testimony of Horace, though given inci- 
dentally, confirms the statements of Cato, Va- 
lerius Maximus, and Varro. The poet predicts 
that, under the peaceful administration of Au- 
gustus, the Romans will, over their full goblets, 
sing to the pipe, after the fashion of their fathers, 
the deeds of brave captains, and the ancient 
legends touching the origin of the city, f 

* " In conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in 
quibus laudes erant majoruni, et assa voce, et cum tibicine." 
Nonius, Assa voce pro sola. 

f " Nosque et profestis lucibus et sacris, 

Inter jocosi munera Liberi, 



PREFACE. 21 

The proposition, then, that Rome had ballad- 
poetry is not merely in itself highly probable, 
but is fully proved by direct evidence of the 
greatest weight. 

This proposition being established, it becomes 
easy to understand why the early history of the 
city is unlike almost every thing else in Latin 
literature, native where almost every thing else 
is borrowed, imaginative where almost every 
thing else is prosaic. We can scarcely hesitate to 
pronounce that the magnificent, pathetic, and 
truly national legends, which present so striking 
a contrast to all that surrounds them, are broken 
and defaced fragments of that early poetry which, 
even in the age of Cato the Censor, had become 
antiquated, and of which Tully had never heard 
a line. 

That this poetry should have been suffered to 



Cum prole matronisque nostris, 
Rite Deos prius apprecati, 
Virtute functos, moke i trum, duces, 
Lydis remixto carmine tibiis, 

Trojamque, et Anchisen, et almse 
Progeniem Veneris canemus." 

Carm. iv. 15. 



22 PREFACE. 

perish will not appear strange when we consider 
how complete was the triumph of the Greek 
genius over the public mind of Italy. It is pro- 
bable that, at an early period, Homer, Archi- 
lochus, and Herodotus, furnished some hints 
to the Latin minstrels*: but it was not till 
after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry of 
Rome began to put off its old Ausonian character. 
The transformation was soon consummated. The 
conquered, says Horace, led captive the con- 
querors. It was precisely at the time at which 
the Roman people rose to unrivalled political as- 
cendency that they stooped to pass under the 
intellectual yoke. It was precisely at the time 
at which the sceptre departed from Greece that 
the empire of her language and of her arts be- 
came universal and despotic. The revolution 
indeed was not effected without a struggle. 
Nsevius seems to have been the last of the ancient 
line of poets. Ennius was the founder of a new 
dynasty. Nsevius celebrated the First Punic War 

* See the Preface to the Lay of the Battle of Regillus. 



PKEFACE. 23 

in Saturnian verse, the old national verse of 
Italy.* Ennius sang the Second Punic War in 

* Cicero speaks highly in more than one place of this poem of 
!N"sevius ; Ennius sneered at it, and stole from it. 

As to the Saturnian measure, see Hermann's Elementa Doctrinse 
Metricse, iii. 9. 

The Saturnian line, according to the grammarians, consisted of 
two parts. The first was a catalectic dimeter iambic ; the second 
was composed of three trochees. But the license taken by the 
early Latin poets seems to have been almost boundless. The most 
perfect Saturnian line which has been preserved was the work, not 
of a professional artist, but of an amateur : 

" Dabunt malum Metelli N sevio poetae." 

There has been much difference of opinion among learned men 
respecting the history of this measure. That it is the same with a 
Greek measure used by Archilochus is indisputable. (Bentley, Pha- 
laris, xi.) But in spite of the authority of Terentianus Maurus, 
and of the still higher authority of Bentley, we may venture to 
doubt whether the coincidence was not fortuitous. We constantly 
find the same rude and simple numbers in different countries, under 
circumstances which make it impossible to suspect that there has 
been imitation on either side. Bishop Heber heard the children of 
a village in Bengal singing " Kadha, Badha," to the tune of " My 
boy Billy." Neither the Castilian nor the German minstrels of the 
middle ages owed anything to Paros or to ancient Borne. Yet both 
the poem of the Cid and the poem of the Nibelungs contain many 
Saturnian verses ; as, — 

" Estas nuevas a mio Cid eran venidas." 
" A mi lo dicen ; a ti dan las orejadas." 

" Man mohte michel wunder von Sifride sagen." 
" Wa ich den Kiinic vinde daz sol man mir sagen." 



24 PEEFACE. 

numbers borrowed from the Iliad. The elder 
poet, in the epitaph which he wrote for himself, 

Indeed, there cannot be a more perfect Saturnian line than one 
which is sung in every English nursery — 

" The queen was in her parlour eating bread and honey ;" 
yet the author of this line, we may be assured, borrowed nothing 
from either Nasvius or Archilochus. 

On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that, two or 
three hundred years before the time of Ennius, some Latin minstrel 
may have visited Sybaris or Cortona, may have heard some verses 
of Archilochus sung, may have been pleased with the metre, and 
may have introduced it at Rome. Thus much is certain, that the 
Saturnian measure, if not a native of Italy, was at least so early 
and so completely naturalised there that its foreign origin was 
forgotten. 

Bentley says, indeed, that the Saturnian measure was first 
brought from Greece into Italy by Namus. But this is merely 
obiter dictum, to use a phrase common in our courts of law, and 
would not have been deliberately maintained by that incom- 
parable critic, whose memory is held in reverence by all lovers 
of learning. The arguments which might be brought against 
Bentley's assertion — for it is mere assertion, supported by no 
evidence — are innumerable. A few will suffice. 

1. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Ennius. 
Ennius sneered at Nasvius for writing on the First Punic War 
in verses such as the old Italian bards used before Greek litera- 
ture had been studied. Now the poem of Nsevius was in Satur- 
nian verse. Is it possible that Ennius could have used such 
expressions, if the Saturnian verse had been just imported from 
Greece for the first time ? 

2. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Horace. 
" When Greece," says Horace, " introduced her arts into our un- 
civilised country, those rugged Saturnian numbers passed away." 



PREFACE. 



25 



and which is a fine specimen of the early Roman 
diction and versification, plaintively boasted that 
the Latin language had died with him.* Thus 
what to Horace appeared to be the first faint 
dawn of Roman literature appeared to Naevius 
to be its hopeless setting. In truth, one litera- 
ture was setting, and another dawning. 

The victory of the foreign taste was decisive : 

Would Horace have said this, if the Saturnian numbers had been 
imported from Greece just before the hexameter ? 

3. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Festus and 
of Aurelius Victor, both of whom positively say that the most 
ancient prophecies attributed to the Fauns were in Saturnian verse. 

4. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Teren- 
tianus Maurus, to whom he has himself appealed. Terentianus 
Maurus does indeed say that the Saturnian measure, though be- 
lieved by the Romans from a very early period (" credidit vetus- 
tas ") to be of Italian invention, was really borrowed from the 
Greeks. But Terentianus Maurus does not say that it was first 
borrowed by Nasvius. Nay, the expressions used by Terentianus 
Maurus clearly imply the contrary : for how could the Romans 
have believed, from a very early period, that this measure was the 
indigenous production of Latium, if it was really brought over 
from Greece in an age of intelligence and liberal curiosity, — m 
the age which gave birth to Ennius, Plautus, Cato the Censor, and 
other distinguished writers ? If Bentley's assertion were correct, 
there could have been no more doubt at Rome about the Greek 
origin of the Saturnian measure than about the Greek origin of 
hexameters or Sapphics. 

* Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticce, i. 24. 
D 



26 PEEFACE. 

and indeed we can hardly blame the Komans for 
turning away with contempt from the rude lays 
which had delighted their fathers, and giving their 
whole admiration to the immortal productions 
of Greece. The national romances, neglected by 
the great and the refined whose education had 
been finished at Rhodes or Athens, continued, it 
may be supposed, during some generations, to 
delight the vulgar. While Virgil, in hexameters 
of exquisite modulation, described the sports of 
rustics, those rustics were still singing their wild 
Saturnian ballads.* It is not improbable that, 
at the time when Cicero lamented the irreparable 
loss of the poems mentioned by Cato, a search 
among the nooks of the Apennines, as active as the 
search which Sir Walter Scott made among the 
descendants of the mosstroopers of Liddesdale, 
might have brought to light many fine remains 
of ancient minstrelsy. No such search was made. 
The Latin ballads perished for ever. Yet dis- 
cerning critics have thought that they could still 
perceive in the early history of Rome numerous 

* See Servius, in Georg. ii. 385. 



PREFACE. 27 

fragments of this lost poetry, as the traveller on 
classic ground sometimes finds, built into the 
heavy wall of a fort or convent, a pillar rich with 
acanthus leaves, or a frieze where the Amazons 
and Bacchanals seem to live. The theatres and 
temples of the Greek and the Roman were de- 
graded into the quarries of the Turk and the 
Goth. Even so did the ancient Saturnian poetry 
become the quarry in which a crowd of orators 
and annalists found the materials for their prose. 
It is not difficult to trace the process by which 
the old songs were transmuted into the form 
which they now wear. Funeral panegyric and 
chronicle appear to have been the intermediate 
links which connected the lost ballads with the 
histories now extant. From a very early period 
it was the usage that an oration should be pro- 
nounced over the remains of a noble Roman. 
The orator, as we learn from Polybius, was ex- 
pected, on such an occasion, to recapitulate all 
the services which the ancestors of the deceased 
had, from the earliest time, rendered to the com- 
monwealth. There can be little doubt that the 



28 PREFACE. 

speaker on whom this duty was imposed would 
make use of all the stories suited to his purpose 
which were to be found in the popular lays. 
There can be as little doubt that the family of an 
eminent man would preserve a copy of the speech 
which had been pronounced over his corpse. 
The compilers of the early chronicles would have 
recourse to these speeches; and the great his- 
torians of a later period would have recourse to 
the chronicles. 

It may be worth while to select a particular 
story, and to trace its probable progress through 
these stages. The description of the migration 
of the Fabian house to Cremera is one of the 
finest of the many fine passages which lie thick 
in the earlier books of Livy. The Consul, clad 
in his military garb, stands in the vestibule of his 
house, marshalling his clan, three hundred and 
six fighting men, all of the same proud patri- 
cian blood, all worthy to be attended by the 
fasces, and to command the legions. A sad and 
anxious retinue of friends accompanies the ad- 
venturers through the streets ; but the voice of 



PREFACE. 29 

lamentation is drowned by the shouts of ad- 
miring thousands. As the procession passes the 
Capitol, prayers and vows are poured forth, but 
in vain. The devoted band, leaving Janus on 
the right, marches to its doom through the Gate 
of Evil Luck. After achieving high deeds of 
valour against overwhelming numbers, all perish 
save one child, the stock from which the great 
Fabian race was destined again to spring, for the 
safety and glory of the commonwealth. That this 
fine romance, the details of which are so full of 
poetical truth, and so utterly destitute of all show 
of historical truth, came originally from some lay 
which had often been sung with great applause 
at banquets, is in the highest degree probable. 
Nor is it difficult to imagine a mode in which the 
transmission might have taken place. The cele- 
brated Quintus Fabius Maximus, who died about 
twenty years before the First Punic War, and 
more than forty years before Ennius was born, 
is said to have been interred with extraordinary 
pomp. In the eulogy pronounced over his body 
all the great exploits of his ancestors were 



30 PREFACE. 

doubtless recounted and exaggerated. If there 
were then extant songs which gave a vivid and 
touching description of an event, the saddest and 
the most glorious in the long history of the 
Fabian house, nothing could be more natural 
than that the panegyrist should borrow from such 
songs their finest touches, in order to adorn his 
speech. A few generations later the songs would 
perhaps be forgotten, or remembered only by 
shepherds and vine-dressers. But the speech 
would certainly be preserved in the archives of 
the Fabian nobles. Fabius Pictor would be well 
acquainted with a document so interesting to his 
personal feelings, and would insert large extracts 
from it in his rude chronicle. That chronicle, 
as we know, was the oldest to which Livy had 
access. Livy would at a glance distinguish the 
bold strokes of the forgotten poet from the dull 
and feeble narrative by which they were sur- 
rounded, would retouch them with a delicate and 
powerful pencil, and would make them im- 
mortal. 

That this might happen at Rome can scarcely 



PKEFACE. 31 

be doubted; for something very like this has 
happened in several countries, and, among others, 
in our own. Perhaps the theory of Perizonius 
cannot be better illustrated than by showing 
that what he supposes to have taken place in 
ancient times has, beyond all doubt, taken place 
in modern times. 

" History," says Hume with the utmost gra- 
vity, " has preserved some instances of Edgar's 
amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may 
form a conjecture of the rest." He then tells 
very agreeably the stories of Elfleda and Elfrida ; 
two stories which have a most suspicious air of 
romance, and which, indeed, greatly resemble, in 
their general character, some of the legends of 
early Rome. He cites, as his authority for these 
two tales, the chronicle of William of Malmes- 
bury, who lived in the time of King Stephen. 
The great majority of readers suppose that the 
device by which Elfleda was substituted for her 
young mistress, the artifice by which Athelwold 
obtained the hand of Elfrida, the detection of 
that artifice, the hunting party, and the ven- 



32 PREFACE. 

geance of the amorous king, are things about 
which there is no more doubt than about the ex- 
ecution of Anne Boleyn, or the slitting of Sir 
John Coventry's nose. But when we turn to 
William of Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in 
his eagerness to relate these pleasant fables, has 
overlooked one very important circumstance. 
William does indeed tell both the stories ; but he 
gives us distinct notice that he does not warrant 
their truth, and that they rest on no better au- 
thority than that of ballads.* 

Such is the way in which these two well- 
known tales have been handed down. They 
originally appeared in a poetical form. They 
found their way from ballads into an old chro- 
nicle. The ballads perished; the chronicle re- 
mained. A great historian, some centuries after 
the ballads had been altogether forgotten, con- 
sulted the chronicle. He was struck by the 



* " Infamias quas post dicam magis resperserunt cantilena?." 
Edgar appears to have been most mercilessly treated in the Anglo- 
Saxon ballads. He was the favourite of the monks ; and the monks 
and minstrels were at deadly feud. 



PREFACE. 33 

lively colouring of these ancient fictions: he 
transferred them to his pages ; and thus we find 
inserted, as unquestionable facts, in a narrative 
which is likely to last as long as the English 
tongue, the inventions of some minstrel whose 
works were probably never committed to writ- 
ing, whose name is buried in oblivion, and whose 
dialect has become obsolete. It must, then, be 
admitted to be possible, or rather highly pro- 
bable, that the stories of Romulus and Remus, 
and of the Horatii and Curiatii, may have had a 
similar origin. 

Castilian literature will furnish us with an- 
other parallel case. Mariana, the, classical his- 
torian of Spain, tells the story of the ill-starred 
marriage which the King Don Alonso brought 
about between the heirs of Carrion and the 
two daughters of the Cid. The Cid bestowed 
a princely dower on his sons in law. But the 
young men were base and proud, cowardly and 
cruel. They were tried in danger, and found 
wanting. They fled before the Moors, and 
once, when a lion broke out of his den, they ran 

E 



34 PREFACE. 

and crouched in an unseemly hiding place. 
They knew that they were despised, and took 
counsel how they might be avenged. They 
parted from their father in law with many signs 
of love, and set forth on a journey with Dona 
Elvira and Dona Sol. In a solitary place the 
bridegrooms seized their brides, stripped them, 
scourged them, and departed, leaving them for 
dead. But one of the house of Bivar, suspecting 
foul play, had followed them in disguise. The 
ladies were brought back safe to the house of 
their father. Complaint was made to the king. 
It was adjudged by the Cortes that the dower 
given by the Cicl should be returned, and that 
the heirs of Carrion together with one of their 
kindred should do battle against three knights 
of the party of the Cid. The guilty youths 
would have declined the combat ; but all their 
shifts were vain. They were vanquished in 
the lists, and for ever disgraced, while their in- 
jured wives were sought in marriage by great 
princes.* 

* Mariana, lib. x. can. 4. 



PREFACE. 35 

Some Spanish writers have laboured to show, 
by an examination of dates and circumstances, 
that this story is untrue. Such confutation was 
surely not needed ; for the narrative is on the 
face of it a romance. How it found its way into 
Mariana's history is quite clear. He acknow- 
ledges his obligations to the ancient chronicles ; 
and had doubtless before him the " Cronica del 
famoso Cavallero Cid Ruy Diez Campeador," 
which had been printed as early as the year 1552. 
He little suspected that all the most striking 
passages in this chronicle were copied from a 
poem of the twelfth century, a poem of which 
the language and versification had long been 
obsolete, but which glowed with no common 
portion of the fire of the Iliad. Yet such was 
the fact. More than a century and a half after 
the death of Mariana, this venerable ballad, of 
which one imperfect copy on parchment, four 
hundred years old, had been preserved at Bivar, 
was for the first time printed. Then it was 
found that every interesting circumstance of the 
story of the heirs of Carrion was derived by 



36 PREFACE. 

the eloquent Jesuit from a song of which he 
had never heard, and which was composed by 
a minstrel whose very name had long been for- 
gotten.* 

Such, or nearly such, appears to have been 
the process by which the lost ballad-poetry of 
Rome was transformed into history. To reverse 
that process, to transform some portions of early 
Roman history back into the poetry out of 
which they were made, is the object of this work. 

In the following poems the author speaks, not 
in his own person, but in the persons of ancient 
minstrels who know only what a Roman citizen, 
born three or four hundred years before the 
Christian sera, may be supposed to have known, 
and who are in nowise above the passions and 
prejudices of their age and nation. To these 
imaginary poets must be ascribed some blunders 
which are so obvious that it is unnecessary to 

* See the account which Sanchez gives of the Bivar manuscript 
in the first volume of the Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas anterior es 
al Sigh XV. Part of the story of the lords of Carrion, in the 
poem of the Cid, has been translated by Mr. Frere in a manner 
above all praise. 



PREFACE. 37 

point them out. The real blunder would have 
been to represent these old poets as deeply versed 
in general history, and studious of chronological 
accuracy. To them must also be attributed 
the illiberal sneers at the Greeks, the furious 
party spirit, the contempt for the arts of 
peace, the love of war for its own sake, the 
ungenerous exultation over the vanquished, 
which the reader will sometimes observe. To 
portray a Roman of the age of Camillus or 
Curius as superior to national antipathies, as 
mourning over the devastation and slaughter by 
which empire and triumphs were to be won, as 
looking on human suffering with the sympathy of 
Howard, or as treating conquered enemies with 
the delicacy of the Black Prince, would be to 
violate all dramatic propriety. The old Romans 
had some great virtues, — fortitude, temperance, 
veracity, spirit to resist oppression, respect for 
legitimate authority, fidelity in the observing of 
contracts, disinterestedness, ardent patriotism; 
but Christian charity and chivalrous generosity 
were alike unknown to them. 



38 PREFACE. 

It would have been obviously improper to mi- 
mic the manner of any particular age or country. 
Something has been borrowed, however, from our 
own old ballads, and more from Sir Walter Scott, 
the great restorer of our ballad-poetry. To the 
Iliad still greater obligations are due ; and those 
obligations have been contracted with the less 
hesitation, because there is reason to believe that 
some of the old Latin minstrels really had recourse 
to that inexhaustible store of poetical images. 

It would have been easy to swell this little 
volume to a very considerable bulk, by append- 
ing notes filled with quotations ; but to a 
learned reader such notes are not necessary; 
for an unlearned reader they would have little 
interest; and the judgment passed both by the 
learned and by the unlearned on a work of the 
imagination will always depend much more on 
the general character and spirit of such a work 
than on minute details. 



HORATIUS. 



H R A T I U S. 



There can be little doubt that among those 
parts of early Roman history which had a poeti- 
cal origin was the legend of Horatius Codes. 
We have several versions of the story, and 
these versions differ from each other in points 
of no small importance. Polybius, there is 
reason to believe, heard the tale recited over the 
remains of some Consul or Praetor descended 
from the old Horatian patricians ; for he evi- 
dently introduces it as a specimen of the nar- 
ratives with which the Romans were in the 
habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It 
is remarkable that, according to his description, 
Horatius defended the bridge alone, and perished 



42 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

in the waters. According to the chronicles 
which Livy and Dionysius followed, Horatius 
had two companions, swam safe to shore, and 
was loaded with honours and rewards. 
^ These discrepancies are easily explained. Our 
own literature, indeed, will furnish an exact 
parallel to what may have taken place at Rome. 
It is highly probable that the memory of the war 
of Porsena was preserved by compositions much 
resembling the two ballads which stand first in 
the Relics of Ancient English Poetry. In both 
those ballads the English, commanded by the 
Percy, fight with the Scots, commanded by the 
Douglas. In one of the ballads the Douglas is 
killed by a nameless English archer, and the 
Percy by a Scottish spearman: in the other, 
the Percy slays the Douglas in single combat, 
and is himself made prisoner. In the former, 
Sir Hugh Montgomery is shot through the heart 
by a Northumbrian bowman : in the latter he is 
taken, and exchanged for the Percy. Yet both 
the ballads relate to the same event, and that 
an event which probably took place within the 



HORATIUS. 43 

memory of persons who were alive when both the 
ballads were made. One of the minstrels says : 

" Old men that knowen the grounde well yenoughe 
Call it the battell of Otterburn : 
At Otterburn began this spurne 
Upon a monnyn day. 
Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean : 
The Perse never went away." 

The other poet sums up the event in the follow- 
ing lines : 

" Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne 

Bytwene the nyghte and the day : 
Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, 
And the Percy was lede away." 

It is by no means unlikely that there were two 
old Roman lays about the defence of the bridge ; 
and that, while the story which Livy has trans- 
mitted to us was preferred by the multitude, 
the other, which ascribed the whole glory to 
Horatius alone, may have been the favourite 
with the Horatian house. 

The following ballad is supposed to have been 



44 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

made about a hundred and twenty years after 
the war which it celebrates, and just before the 
taking of Koine by the Gauls. The author 
seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of 
the military glory of his country, sick of the 
disputes of factions, and much given to pining 
after good old times which had never really 
existed. The allusion, however, to the partial 
manner in which the public lands were allotted 
could proceed only from a plebeian; and the 
allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks 
the date of the poem, and shows that the poet 
shared in the general discontent with which the 
proceedings of Camillus, after the taking of Veii, 
were regarded. 

The penultimate syllable of the name Porsena 
has been shortened in spite of the authority 
of Niebuhr, who pronounces, without assigning 
any ground for his opinion, that Martial was 
guilty of a decided blunder in the line, 

" Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit." 

It is not easy to understand how any modern 
scholar, whatever his attainments may be, — and 



IIORATIUS. 45 

those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly immense, — 
can venture to pronounce that Martial did not 
know the quantity of a word which he must have 
uttered and heard uttered a hundred times before 
he left school. Niebuhr seems also to have for- 
gotten that Martial has fellow culprits to keep 
him in countenance. Horace has committed the 
same decided blunder ; for he gives us, as a pure 
iambic line, 

" Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenas manus." 
Silius Italicus has repeatedly offended in the 
same way, as when he says, 

" Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram : " 
and again, 

" Clusinum vulgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas." 
A modern writer may be content to err in such 
company. 

Niebuhr's supposition that each of the three 
defenders of the bridge was the representative 
of one of the three patrician tribes is both in- 
genious and probable, and has been adopted in 
the following poem. 



HORATIUS. 



A LAY MACE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY 
CCCLX. 



1. 

Lars Porsena of Clusium 

By the Nine Gods he swore 
That the great house of Tarquin 

Should suffer wrong no more. 
By the Nine Gods he swore it, 

And named a try sting day, 
And bade his messengers ride forth. 
East and west and south and north, 

To summon his array. 



East and west and south and north 
The messengers ride fast, 

And tower and town and cottage 
Have heard the trumpet's blast. 



48 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Shame on the false Etruscan 
Who lingers in his home, 

When Porsena of Clusium 
Is on the march for Rome, 



The horsemen and the footmen 

Are pouring in amain 
From many a stately market-place ; 

From many a fruitful plain ; 
From many a lonely hamlet, 

Which, hid by beech and pine, 
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest 

Of purple Apennine ; 

4. 

From lordly Volaterra?, 

Where scowls the far-famed hold 
Piled by the hands of giants 

For godlike kings of old ; 
From seagirt Populonia, 

Whose sentinels descry 
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops 

Fringing the southern "ky ; 



HORATIUS. 49 



From the proud mart of Pisae, 

Queen of the western waves, 
Where ride Massilia's triremes 

Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; 
From where sweet Clanis wanders 

Through corn and vines and flowers ; 
From where Cortona lifts to heaven 

Her diadem of towers. 

6. 

Tall are the oaks whose acorns 

Drop in dark Auser's rill ; 
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs 

Of the Ciminian hill ; 
Beyond all streams Clitumnus 

Is to the herdsman dear ; 
Best of all pools the fowler loves 

The great Volsinian mere. 

7. 

But now no stroke of woodman 

Is heard by Auser's rill ; 
No hunter tracks the stag's green path 

Up the Ciminian hill ; 

G 



50 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME, 

Unwatched along Clitumnus 
Grazes the milk-white steer ; 

Unharmed the water fowl may dip 
In the Volsinian mere. 



The harvests of Arretium, 

This year, old men shall reap ; 
This year,, young boys in Umbro 

Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; 
And in the vats of Luna, 

This year, the must shall foam 
Round the white feet of laughing girls, 

Whose sires have marched to Rome. 



There be thirty chosen prophets, 

The wisest of the land, 
Who alway by Lars Porsena 

Both morn anc evening stand : 
Evening and morn the Thirty 

Have turned the verses o'er, 
Traced from the right on linen white 

By mighty seers of yore. 



HORATIUS. 51 

10. 

And with one voice the Thirty- 
Have their glad answer given : 

" Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena ; 
Go forth, beloved of Heaven ; 

Go, and return in glory 
To Clusium's royal dome ; 

And hang round Nurseia's altars 
The golden shields of Rome." 

11. 

And now hath every city 

Sent up her tale of men ; 
The foot are fourscore thousand, 

The horse are thousands ten. 
Before the gates of Sutrium 

Is met the great array. 
A proud man was Lars Porsena 

Upon the trysting day. 

i 12. 

For all the Etruscan armies 

Were ranged beneath his eye, 
And many a banished Roman, 

And many a stout ally ; 



52 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And with a mighty following 

To join the muster came 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 

13. 

But by the yellow Tiber 

Was tumult and affright : 
From all the spacious champaign 

To Rome men took their flight. 
A mile around the city, 

The throng stopped up the ways ; 
A fearful sight it was to see 

Through two long nights and days, 

14. 

For aged folk on crutches, 

And women great with child, 
And mothers sobbing over babes 

That clung to them and smiled, 
And sick men borne in litters 

High on the necks of slaves, 
And troops of sun-burned husbandmen 

With reaping-hooks and staves. 



HORATIUS. 53 

15. 

And droves of mules and asses 

Laden with skins of wine, 
And endless flocks of goats and sheep, 

And endless herds of kine, 
And endless trains of waggons 

That creaked beneath the weight 
Of corn-sacks and of household goods, 

Choked every roaring gate. 

16. 

Now, from the rock Tarpeian, 

Could the wan burghers spy 
The line of blazing villages 

Red in the midnight sky. 
The Fathers of the City, 

They sat all night and day, 
For every hour some horseman came 

With tidings of dismay. 

17. 

To eastward and to westward 
Have spread the Tuscan bands ; 

Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote 
In Crustumerium stands. 



54 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Verbenna down to Ostia 
Hath wasted all the plain ; 

Astur hath stormed Janiculum, 
And the stout guards are slain. 

18. 

I wis, in all the Senate, 

There was no heart so bold, 
But sore it ached, and fast it beat, 

When that ill news was told. 
Forthwith up rose the Consul, 

Up rose the Fathers all ; 
In haste they girded up their gowns, 

And hied them to the wall. 

19. 

They held a council standing 

Before the River-Gate ; 
Short time was there, ye well may guess, 

For musing or debate. 
Out spake the Consul roundly : 

" The bridge must straight go down ; 
For, since Janiculum is lost, 

Nought else can save the town." 



HORATIUS. 55 



20. 



Just then a scout came flying, 

All wild with haste and fear : 
" To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul ; 

Lars Porsena is here." 
On the low hills to westward 

The Consul fixed his eye, 
And saw the swarthy storm of dust 

Rise fast along the sky. 



21. 



And nearer fast and nearer 

Doth the red whirlwind come ; 
And louder still and still more loud, 
From underneath that rolling cloud, 
Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 

The trampling, and the hum. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears, 
Far to left and far to right, 
In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 
The long array of helmets bright, 

The long array of spears. 



56 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

22. 
And plainly and more plainly, 

Above that glimmering line, 
Now might ye see the banners 

Of twelve fair cities shine ; 
But the banner of proud Clusium 

Was highest of them all, 
The terror of the Umbrian, 

The terror of the Gaul. 

23. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now might the burghers know, 
By port and vest, by horse and crest, 

Each warlike Lucumo. 
There Cilnius of Arretium 

On his fleet roan was seen ; 
And Astur of the four-fold shield, 
Girt with the brand none else may wield, 
Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 
And dark Verbenna from the hold 

By reedy Thrasymene. 

24. 
Fast by the royal standard, 
O'erlookinff all the war, 



HORATIUS. 57 

Lars Porsena of Clusium 

Sate in his ivory car. 
By the right wheel rode Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
And by the left false Sextus. 

That wrought the deed of shame. 

25. 
But when the face of Sextus 

Was seen among the foes, 
A yell that rent the firmament 

From all the town arose. 
On the house-tops was no woman 

But spat towards him and hissed ; 
No child but screamed out curses, 

And shook its little fist. 



26. 
But the Consul's brow was sad, 

And the Consul's speech was low, 
And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
" Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down ; 
And if they once may win the bridge, 

What hope to save the town ? " 



58 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME, 

27. 
Then out spake brave Horatius, 

The Captain of the gate : 
" To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh soon or late. 
And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers 

And the temples of his Gods, 

28. 
" And for the tender mother 
Who dandled him to rest, 
And for the wife who nurses 

His baby at her breast, 
And for the holy maidens 

Who feed the eternal flame, 
To save them from false Sextus 
That wrought the deed of shame ? 



29. 
Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, 

With all the speed ye may ; 
I, with two more to help me, 

Will hold the foe in play. 



1^ 



HORATIUS. 59 



In yon strait path a thousand 
May well be stopped by three. 

Now who will stand on either hand, 
And keep the bridge with me ? " 



30. 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius ; 

A Ramnian proud was he : 
" Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
And out spake strong Herminius ; 

Of Titian blood was he : 
" I will abide on thy left side, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 



31. 

" Horatius," quoth the Consul, 

" As thou say est, so let it be." 
And straight against that great array 
Forth went the dauntless Three. 
''/ For Romans in Rome's quarrel 
Spared neither land nor gold, 
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, 
In the brave days of old. 



60 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

32. 
Then none was for a party ; 

Then all were for the state ; 
Then the great man helped the poor, 

And the poor man loved the great : 
Then lands were fairly portioned ; 

Then spoils were fairly sold : 
The Romans were like brothers 

In the brave days of old. 

33. 
Now Roman is to Roman 

More hateful than a foe, 
And the Tribunes beard the high, 

And the Fathers grind the low. 
As we wax hot in faction, 

In battle we wax cold : 
Wherefore men fight not as they fought 

In the brave days of old. 

34. 
Now while the Three were tightening 

Their harness on their backs, 
The Consul was the foremost man 

To take in hand an axe : 



HORATIUS. 61 

And Fathers mixed with Commons 

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, 
And smote upon the planks above, 

And loosed the props below. 

35. 
Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 

Right glorious to behold, 

h. 
Came flashing back the noonday light, 

Rank behind rank, like surges bright 

Of a broad sea of gold. 
Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee, 
As that great host, with measured tread, 
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, 
Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head, 

Where stood the dauntless Three. 

36. 
The Three stood calm and silent 

And looked upon the foes, 
And a great shout of laughter 

From all the vanguard rose : 
And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that deep array ; 



62 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 
To win the narrow way ; 

37. 
Aunus from green Tifernum, 

Lord of the Hill of Vines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
And Picus, long to Clusium 

Vassal in peace and war, 
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
From that grey crag where, girt with towers, 
The fortress of Nequinum lowers 

O'er the pale waves of Nar. 

38. 
Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus 

Into the stream beneath : 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth : 
At Picus brave Horatius 

Darted one fiery thrust ; 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 



HORATIUS. 63 

39. 

Then Ocnus of Falerii 

Rushed on the Roman Three ; 
And Lausulus of Urgo, 

The rover of the sea ; 
And Aruns of Volsinium, 

Who slew the great wild boar, 
The great wild boar that had his den 
Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen, 
And wasted fields, and slaughtered men, 

Along Albinia's shore, 



40. 

Herminius smote down Aruns : 

Lartius laid Ocnus low : 
Right to the heart of Lausulus 

Horatius sent a blow. 
" Lie there," he cried, "fell pirate ! 

No more, aghast and pale, 
From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark 
The track of thy destroying bark. 
No more Campania's hinds shall fly 
To woods and caverns Avhen they spy 

Thy thrice accursed sail." 



64 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

41. 
But now no sound of laughter 

Was heard amongst the foes, 
A wild and wrathful clamour 

From all the vanguard rose, 
Six spears' lengths from the entrance 

Halted that deep array, 
And for a space no man came forth 

To win the narrow way. 

42. 

But hark ! the cry is Astur : 

And lo ! the ranks divide ; 
And the great Lord of Luna 

Comes with his stately stride. 
Upon his ample shoulders 

Clangs loud the four -fold shield, 
And in his hand he shakes the brand 

Which none but he can wield. 

43. 

He smiled on those bold Romans 
A smile serene and high ; 

He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 
And scorn was in his eye. 



HORATIUS. 65 

Quoth he, " The she-wolf's litter 

Stand savagely at bay : 
But will ye dare to follow, 

If Astur clears the way ? " 

44. 

Then, whirling up his broadsword 

With both hands to the height, 
He rushed against Horatius, 

And smote with all his might. 
With shield and blade Horatius 

Eight deftly turned the blow. 
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh ; 
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : 
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry 

To see the red blood flow. 

45. 

He reeled, and on Herminius 

He leaned one breathing-space ; 
Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds, 

Sprang right at Astur's face. 
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, 

So fierce a thrust he sped, 



6Q LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

The good sword stood a hand-breadth out 
Behind the Tuscan's head, 

46. 
And the great Lord of Luna 

Fell at that deadly stroke, 
As falls on Mount Alvernus 

A thunder-smitten oak. 
Far o'er the crashing forest 

The giant arms lie spread ; 
And the pale augurs, muttering low, 

Gaze on the blasted head. 

47. 
On Astur's throat Horatius 

Right firmly pressed his heel, 
And thrice and four times tugged amain, 
Ere he wrenched out the steel. 
' " And see," he cried, " the welcome, 
Fair guests, that waits you here ! 
What noble Lucumo comes next 
To taste our Roman cheer ? " 

48. 
But at his haughty challenge 
A sullen murmur ran, 



IIORATIUS. 67 

Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dread, 

Along that glittering van. 
There lacked not men of prowess, 

Nor men of lordly race ; 
For all Etruria's noblest 

Were round the fatal place. 

49. 
But all Etruria's noblest 

Felt their hearts sink to see 
On the earth the bloody corpses, 

In the path the dauntless Three : 
And, from the ghastly entrance 

"Where those bold Romans stood, 
All shrank, like boys who unaware, 
Ranging the woods to start a hare, 
Come to the mouth of the dark lair 
Where, growling low, a fierce old bear 

Lies amidst bones and blood. 

50. 
Was none who would be foremost 

To lead such dire attack ; 
But those behind cried " Forward ! " 

And those before cried " Back I " 



68 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And backward now and forward 

Wavers the deep array ; 
And on the tossing sea of steel, 
To and fro the standards reel ; 
And the victorious trumpet-peal 

Dies fitfully away. 

51. 

Yet one man for one moment 

Strode out before the crowd; 
Well known was he to all the Three, 

And they gave him greeting loud. 
" Now welcome, welcome, Sextus ! 

Now welcome to thy home ! 
Why dost thou stay, and turn away ? 

Here lies the road to Rome." 

52. 
Thrice looked he at the city ; 

Thrice looked he at the dead ; 
And thrice came on in fury, 

And thrice turned back in dread : 
And, white with fear and hatred, 

Scowled at the narrow way 
Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, 

The bravest Tuscans lay. 



HORATIUS. 69 

53. 
But meanwhile axe and lever 

Have manfully been .plied ; 
And now the bridge hangs tottering 

Above the boiling tide. 
" Come back, come back, Horatius ! " 

Loud cried the Fathers all. 
" Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 

Back, ere the ruin fall ! " 

54. 

Back darted Spurius Lartius ; 

Herminius darted back : 
And, as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
But when they turned their faces, 

And on the farther shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 

They would have crossed once more. 

55. 
But with a crash like thunder 

Fell every loosened beam, 
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 

Lay right athwart the stream : 



70 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

And a long shout of triumph 
Rose from the walls of Rome, 

As to the highest turret-tops 
Was splashed the yellow foam. 

56. 
And, like a horse unbroken 

When first he feels the rein, 
The furious river struggled hard, 

And tossed his tawny mane ; 
And burst the curb, and bounded, 

Rejoicing to be free ; 
And whirling down, in fierce career, 
Battlement, and plank, and pier, 

Rushed headlong to the sea. 

57. 
Alone stood brave Horatius, 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, 

And the broad flood behind. 
" Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, 

With a smile on his pale face. 
" Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, 

" Now yield thee to our grace." 






HORATIUS. 71 

58. 
Round turned he, as not deigning 

Those craven ranks to see ; 
Nought spake he to Lars Porsena, 

To Sextus nought spake he ; 
But he saw on Palatinus 

The white porch of his home ; 
And he spake to the noble river 

That rolls by the towers of Rome, 



59, 
" Oh, Tiber ! father Tiber ! 

To whom the Romans pray, 
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 

Take thou in charge this day ! " 
So he spake, and speaking sheathed 

The good sword by his side, 
And with his harness on his back, 

Plunged headlong in the tide. 



60. 
No sound of joy or sorrow 
Was heard from either bank ; 



72 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

But friends and foes in dumb surprise, 
With parted lips and straining eyes, 

Stood gazing where he sank ; 
And when above the surges 

They saw, his crest appear, 
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, 
And even the ranks of Tuscany 

Could scarce forbear to cheer. 

61. 

But fiercely ran the current, 

Swollen high by months of rain : 
And fast his blood was flowing ; 

And he was sore in pain, 
And heavy with his armour, 

And spent with changing blows : 
And oft they thought him sinking, 

But still again he rose. 

62. 

Never, I ween, did swimmer, 

In such an evil case, 
Struggle through such a raging flood 

Safe to the landing place : 



HORATIILS. 

But his limbs were borne up bravely 

By the brave heart within, 
And our good father Tiber 

Bare bravely up his chin. ( 1 ) 

63. 

" Curse on him ! " quoth false Sextus ; 

" Will not the villain drown ? 
But for this stay, ere close of day 

We should have sacked the town ! " 
" Heaven help him !" quoth liars Porsena, 

" And bring him safe to shore ; 
For such a gallant feat of arms 

Was never seen before." 

64. 

And now he feels the bottom ; 

Now on dry earth he stands ; 
Now round him throng the Fathers 

To press his gory hands ; 
And now with shouts and clapping, 

And noise of weeping loud, 
He enters through the River-Gate, 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

K 



74 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

65. 
They gave him of the corn-land, 

That was of public right, 
As much as two strong oxen 

Could plough from morn till night ; 
And they made a molten image, 

And set it up on high, 
And there it stands unto this day 

To witness if I lie. 

66. 
It stands in the Comitium, 

Plain for all folk to see ; 
Horatius in his harness, 

Halting upon one knee : 
And underneath is written, 

In letters all of gold, 
How valiantly he kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 

67. 
And still his name sounds stirring 

Unto the men of Rome, 
As the trumpet-blast that cries to them 

To charge the Volscian home ; 



HORATIUS. 75 

And wives still pray to Juno 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well 

In the brave days of old. 

68. 

And in the nights of winter, 

When the cold north winds blow, 
And the long howling of the wolves 

Is heard amidst the snow ; 
When round the lonely cottage 

Roars loud the tempest's din, 
And the good logs of Algidus 

Roar louder yet within ; 

69. 

When the oldest cask is opened, 

And the largest lamp is lit, 
When the chestnuts glow in the embers, 

And the kid turns on the spit ; 
When young and old in circle 

Around the firebrands close ; 
When the girls are weaving baskets, 

And the lads are shaping bows ; 



76 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

70. 

When the go-oilman mends his armour, 

And trims his helmet's plume ; 
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily 

Goes flashing through the loom ; 
With weeping and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 



(1) Note to Stanza 62. 

" Our ladye bare upp her chinne." 

Ballad of Childe Waters, 

" Never heavier man and horse 
Stemmed a midnight torrent's force ; 

****** 

Yet, through good heart and our Lady's grace, 
At length he gained the landing place." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, I. 



THE 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



THE 

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



The following poem is supposed to have been pro- 
duced about ninety years after the lay of Horatius. 
Some persons mentioned in the lay of Horatius 
make their appearance again, and some appella- 
tions and epithets used in the lay of Horatius 
have been purposely repeated : for, in an age of 
ballad-poetry, it scarcely ever fails to happen, 
that certain phrases come to be appropriated 
to certain men and things, and are regularly 
applied to those men and things by every min- 
strel. Thus we find, both in the Homeric poems 
and in Hesiod, |3nj 'Hpaxhyelr), 7rspix7^6rog 'A[x<f>i- 
yu7j£t£, SidxTopog 'Apysitpourrjg, £7TTa7ruXo£ ©tjStj, 
'EAsvtjs hex yuxoixoio. Thus, too, in our own 



80 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

national songs, Douglas is almost always the 
doughty Douglas: England is merry England: 
all the gold is red; and all the ladies are gay. 

The principal distinction between the lay of 
Horatius and the lay of the Lake Kegillus is 
that the former is meant to be purely Roman, 
while the latter, though national in its general 
spirit, has a slight tincture of Greek learning 
and of Greek superstition. The story of the 
Tarquins, as it has come down to us, appears 
to have been compiled from the works of several 
popular poets ; and one, at least, of those poets 
appears to have visited the Greek colonies in 
Italy, if not Greece itself, and to have had some 
acquaintance with the works of Homer and Hero- 
dotus. Many of the most striking adventures of 
the house of Tarquin, before Lucretia makes her 
appearance, have a Greek character. The Tar- 
quins themselves are represented as Corinthian 
nobles of the great house of the BacchiadaB, driven 
from their country by the tyranny of that Cyp- 
selus, the tale of whose strange escape Herodotus 
has related with incomparable simplicity and live- 



BATTLE OP THE LAKE REGILLUS. 81 

liness.* Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when 
Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the best 
mode of governing a conquered city, he replied 
only by beating down with his staff all the tallest 
poppies in his garden, f This is exactly what 
Herodotus, in the passage to which reference 
has already been made, relates of the counsel 
given to Periander, the son of Cypselus. The 
stratagem by which the town of Gabii is brought 
under the power of the Tarquins is, again, ob- 
viously copied from Herodotus. J The embassy 
of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is 
just such a story as would be told by a poet whose 
head was full of the Greek mythology ; and the 
ambiguous answer returned by Apollo is in the 
exact style of the prophecies which, according 
to Herodotus, lured Croesus to destruction. 
Then the character of the narrative changes. 
From the first mention of Lucretia to the retreat 
of Porsena nothing seems to be borrowed from 



* Herodotus, v. 92. Livy, i. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46. 
t Livy, i. 54. Dionysius, iv. 56. 
| Herodotus, iii. 154. Livy, i. 53. 



82 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

foreign sources. The villany of Sextus, the 
suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death of 
the sons of Brutus, the defence of the bridge, 
Mucius burning his hand*, Cloelia swimming 
through Tiber, seem to be all strictly Koman. 
But when we have done with the Tuscan war, 
and enter upon the war with the Latines, 
we are again struck by the Greek air of the 
story. The Battle of the Lake Kegillus is in 
all respects a Homeric battle, except that 
the combatants ride astride on their horses, 
instead of driving chariots. The mass of fight- 
ing men is hardly mentioned. The leaders single 
each other out, and engage hand to hand. The 
great object of the warriors on both sides is, as 
in the Iliad, to obtain possession of the spoils 
and bodies of the slain; and several circum- 
stances are related which forcibly remind us of 
the great slaughter round the corpses of Sar- 
pedon and Patroclus. 



* M. de Pouilly attempted, a hundred and twenty years ago, to 
prove that the story of Mucius was of Greek origin ; but he was 
signally confuted by the Abbe Sallier. See the Memoires de 
VAcademie des Inscriptions, vi. 27. 66. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 00 

But there is one circumstance which de- 
serves especial notice. Both the war of Troy 
and the war of Regillus were caused by the 
licentious passions of young princes, who were 
therefore peculiarly bound not to be sparing of 
their own persons in the day of battle. Now 
the conduct of Sextus at Regillus, as de- 
scribed by Livy, so exactly resembles that of 
Paris, as described at the beginning of the third 
book of the Iliad, that it is difficult to believe 
the resemblance accidental. Paris appears be- 
fore the Trojan ranks, defying the bravest Greek 
to encounter him : 

Tpaicrlv fisv irpoyuayt'C^v 'AXs^avSpos OsosiSrjs, 

'Apyslcov irpoKaXi^STO Travras aplcrrovs, 

dvrtSiov /jia^saacrOat hv alvfj hrjiorrjTL. 

Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manner; 
" Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem 
se in prima exsulum acie." Menelaus rushes to 
meet Paris. A Roman noble, eager for ven- 
geance, spurs his horse towards Sextus. Both 
the guilty princes are instantly terror-stricken : 



84 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Tov S' a)? ovv evorjaav ' ' AXs^avSpos OsoslBtjs 

h irpofjud^oicTi, (pavsvra, icaT£Tr\r)<yr} <bl\ov rjrop' 

tity S' irdpcov sis sOvos sya^sro Kr)p akssivcov. 

" Tarquinius," says Livy, " retro in agmen 
suorum infenso cessit hosti." If this be a for- 
tuitous coincidence, it is one of the most extra- 
ordinary in literature. 

In the following poem, therefore, images and 
incidents have been borrowed, not merely with- 
out scruple, but on principle, from the incom- 
parable battle-pieces of Homer. 

The popular belief at Eome, from an early 
period, seems to have been that the event of the 
great day of Regillus was decided by super- 
natural agency. Castor and Pollux, it was said, 
had fought, armed and mounted, at the head of 
the legions of the commonwealth, and had after- 
wards carried the news of the victory with in- 
credible speed to the city. The well in the 
Forum at which they had alighted was pointed 
out. Near the well rose their ancient temple. 
A great festival was kept to their honour on the 
Ides of Quintilis, supposed to be the anniversary 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 85 

of the battle ; and on that day sumptuous sacri- 
fices were offered to them at the public charge. 
One spot on the margin of Lake Regillus was 
regarded during many ages with superstitious 
awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse's 
hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock; and 
this mark was believed to have been made by 
one of the celestial chargers. 

How the legend originated cannot now be 
ascertained : but we may easily imagine several 
ways in which it might have originated : nor 
is it at all necessary to suppose, with Julius 
Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up 
by the Dictator to personate the sons of Leda. It 
is probable that Livy is correct when he says that 
the Roman general, in the hour of peril, vowed a 
temple to Castor. If so, nothing could be more 
natural than that the multitude should ascribe the 
victory to the favour of the Twin Gods. When 
such was the prevailing sentiment, any man who 
chose to declare that, in the midst of the con- 
fusion and slaughter, he had seen two godlike 
forms on white horses scattering the Latines, 



86 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

would find ready credence. We know, indeed, 
that, in modern times, a very similar story actu- 
ally found credence among a people much more 
civilised than the Eomans of the fifth century 
before Christ. A chaplain of Cortes, writing 
about thirty years after the conquest of Mexico, 
in an age of printing-presses, libraries, univer- 
sities, scholars, logicians, jurists, and statesmen, 
had the face to assert that, in one engage- 
ment against the Indians, St. James had ap- 
peared on a grey horse at the head of the 
Castilian adventurers. Many of those adven- 
turers were living when this lie was printed. 
One of them, honest Bernal Diaz, wrote an 
account of the expedition. He had the evi- 
dence of his own senses against the chaplain's 
legend; but he seems to have distrusted even 
the evidence of his own senses. He says that he 
was in the battle, and that he saw a grey horse 
with a man on his back, but that the man was, 
to his thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the 
ever-blessed apostle St. James. " Nevertheless," 
he adds, " it may be that the person on the grey 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 87 

horse was the glorious apostle St. James, and 
that I, sinner that I am, was unworthy to see 
him." The Romans of the age of Cincinnatus 
were probably quite as credulous as the Spanish 
subjects of Charles the Fifth. It is therefore 
conceivable that the appearance of Castor and 
Pollux may have become an article of faith 
before the generation which had fought at 
Eegillus had passed away. Nor could any thing 
be more natural than that the poets of the next 
age should embellish this story, and make the 
celestial horsemen bear the tidings of victory to 
Rome. 

Many years after the temple of the Twin Gods 
had been built in the Forum, an important addi- 
tion was made to the ceremonial by which the 
state annually testified its gratitude for their 
protection. Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius 
were elected Censors at a momentous crisis. It 
had become absolutely necessary that the classi- 
fication of the citizens should be revised. On 
that classification depended the distribution of 
political power. Party-spirit ran high ; and the 



bb LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

republic seemed to be in danger of falling under 
the dominion either of a narrow oligarchy or of 
an ignorant and headstrong rabble. Under 
such circumstances, the most illustrious patrician 
and the most illustrious plebeian of the age were 
intrusted with the office of arbitrating between 
the angry factions; and they performed their 
arduous task to the satisfaction of all honest and 
reasonable men. 

One of their reforms was a remodelling of the 
equestrian order; and, having effected this re- 
form, they determined to give to their work a 
sanction derived from religion. In the chivalrous 
societies of modern times, societies which have 
much more than may at first sight appear in 
common with the equestrian order of Rome, it 
has been usual to invoke the special protection 
of some Saint, and to observe his day with 
peculiar solemnity. Thus the Companions of 
the Garter wear the image of St. George 
depending from their collars, and meet, on 
great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. Thus, 
when Louis the Fourteenth instituted a new 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE IlEGILLUS. 89 

order of chivalry for the rewarding of military 
merit, he commended it to the favour of his own 
glorified ancestor and patron, and decreed that 
all the members of the fraternity should meet at 
the royal palace on the Feast of St. Louis, should 
attend the king to chapel, should hear mass, 
and should subsequently hold their great annual 
assembly. There is a considerable resemblance 
between this rule of the order of St. Louis and 
the rule which Fabius and Decius made respect- 
ing the Roman knights. It was ordained that a 
grand muster and inspection of the equestrian 
body should be part of the ceremonial performed, 
on the anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in 
honour of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian 
Gods. All the knights, clad in purple and 
crowned with olive, were to meet at a temple 
of Mars in the suburbs. Thence they were to 
ride in state to the Forum, where the temple 
of the Twins stood. This pageant was, during 
several centuries, considered as one of the most 
splendid sights of Rome. In the time of Dio- 
nysius the cavalcade sometimes consisted of five 



90 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

thousand horsemen, all persons of fair repute 
and easy fortune.* 

There can be no doubt that the Censors who 
instituted this august ceremony acted in concert 
with the Pontiffs to whom, by the constitution 
of Rome, the superintendence of the public wor- 
ship belonged ; and it is probable that those high 
religious functionaries were, as usual, fortunate 
enough to find in their books or traditions some 
warrant for the innovation. 

The following poem is supposed to have been 
made for this great occasion. Songs, we know, 
were chanted at the religious festivals of Rome 
from an early period, indeed from so early a 
period that some of the sacred verses were 
popularly ascribed to JNTuma, and were utterly 
unintelligible in the age of Augustus. In the 
Second Punic War a great feast was held in 
honour of Juno, and a song was sung in her 



* See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max. ii. 2. Aurel. Vict. De Viris 
Mustribus, 32. Dionysius, vi. 13. Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 5. See 
also the singularly ingenious chapter in Niebuhr's posthumous 
volume, Die Censur des Q, Fabius und P. Decius, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 91 

praise. This song was extant when Livy wrote ; 
and, though exceedingly rugged and uncouth, 
seemed to him not wholly destitute of merit.* A 
song, as we learn from Horace, was part of the 
established ritual at the great Secular Jubilee. f 
It is therefore likely that the Censors and Pontiffs, 
when they had resolved to add a grand proces- 
sion of knights to the other solemnities annually 
performed on the Ides of Quintilis, would call in 
the aid of a poet. Such a poet would naturally 
take for his subject the battle of Regillus, the 
appearance of the Twin Gods, and the institution 
of their festival. He would find abundant ma- 
terials in the ballads of his predecessors ; and he 
would make free use of the scanty stock of Greek 
learning which he had himself acquired. He 
would probably introduce some wise and holy 
Pontiff enjoining the magnificent ceremonial 
which, after a long interval, had at length been 
adopted. If the poem succeeded, many persons 
would commit it to memory. Parts of it would 

* Livy, xxvii. 37. f Hor. Carmen Seculare. 



92 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

be sung to the pipe at banquets. It would be 
peculiarly interesting to the great Posthumian 
House, which numbered among its many images 
that of the Dictator Aulus, the hero of Regillus. 
The orator who, in the following generation, 
pronounced the funeral panegyric over the re- 
mains of Lucius Posthumius Megellus, thrice 
Consul, would borrow largely from the lay; 
and thus some passages, much disfigured, would 
probably find their way into the chronicles which 
were afterwards in the hands of Dionysius and 
Livy. 

Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation 
of the field of battle. The opinion of those 
who suppose that the armies met near Cornu- 
felle, between Frascati and the Monte Porzio, 
is at least plausible, and has been followed in 
the poem. 

As to the details of the battle, it has not been 
thought desirable to adhere minutely to the 
accounts which have come down to us. Those 
accounts, indeed, differ widely from each other, 
and, in all probability, differ as widely from the 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS. 93 

ancient poem from which they were originally 
derived. 

It is unnecessary to point out the obvious 
imitations of the Iliad, which have been pur- 
posely introduced. 



THE 

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOR AND POLLUX ON THE IDES 
OF QUINTIL1S, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLI. 



1. 

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 

Ho, lictors, clear the way ! 
The Knights will ride, in all their pride. 

Along the streets to-day. 
To-day the doors and windows 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor in the Forum, 

To Mars without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purple, 

With olive each is crown'd ; 
A gallant war-horse under each 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow River, 

While stands the Sacred Hill, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Shall have such honour still 



96 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

Gay are the Martian Kalends : 

December's Nones are gay : 
But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, 

Shall be Rome's whitest day. 

2. 

Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

We keep this solemn feast. 
Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren 

Came spurring from the east. 
They came o'er wild Parthenius 

Tossing in waves of pine, 
O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, 

O'er purple Apennine, 
From where with flutes and dances 

Their ancient mansion rings, 
In lordly Lacedasmon, 

The City of two kings, 
To where, by Lake Regillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum, 

Was fought the glorious fight. 

3. 
Now on the place of slaughter 
Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 97 

And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, 

And apple-orchards green : 
The swine crush the big acorns 

That fall from Corne's oaks. 
Upon the turf by the Fair Fount 

The reaper's pottage smokes. 
The fisher baits his angle ; 

The hunter twangs his bow ; 
Little they think on those strong limbs 

That moulder deep below. 
Little they think how sternly 

That day the trumpets pealed ; 
How in the slippery swamp of blood 

Warrior and war-horse reeled ; 
How wolves came with fierce gallop, 

And crows on eager wings, 
To tear the flesh of captains, 

And peck the eyes of kings ; 
How thick the dead lay scattered 

Under the Porcian height ; 
How through the gates of Tusculum 

Raved the wild stream of flight ; 
And how the Lake Regillus 

Bubbled with crimson foam, 

N 



98 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

What time the Thirty Cities 
Came forth to war with Rome. 

4. 
But, Roman, when thou standest 

Upon that holy ground, 
Look thou with heed on the dark rock 

That girds the dark lake round. 
So shalt thou see a hoof-mark 

Stamped deep into the flint : 
It was no hoof of mortal steed 

That made so strange a dint : 
There to the Great Twin Brethren 

Vow thou thy vows, and pray 
That they, in tempest and in fight, 

Will keep thy head alway. 

5. 
Since last the Great Twin Brethren 

Of mortal eyes were seen, 
Have years gone by an hundred 

And fourscore and thirteen. 
That summer a Virginius 

Was Consul first in place ; 
The second was stout Aulus, 

Of the Posthumian race. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS. 99 

The Herald of the Latines 

From Gabii came in state : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Passed through Rome's Eastern Gate : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Did in our Forum stand ; 
And there he did his office, 

A sceptre in his hand. 

6. 
" Hear, Senators and people 

Of the good town of Rome : 
The Thirty Cities charge you 

To bring the Tarquins home : 
And if ye still be stubborn, 

To work the Tarquins wrong, 
The Thirty Cities warn you, 

Look that your walls be strong." 



Then spake the Consul Aulus, 
He spake a bitter jest : 

" Once the jays sent a message 
Unto the eagle's nest : — 



100 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Now yield thou up thine eyrie 

Unto the carrion-kite, 
Or come forth valiantly, and face 

The jays in deadly fight. — 
Forth looked in wrath the eagle ; 

And carrion-kite and jay, 
Soon as they saw his beak and claw. 

Fled screaming far away." 



The Herald of the Latines 

Hath hied him back in state : 
The Fathers of the City 

Are met in high debate. 
Then spake the elder Consul, 

An ancient man and wise : 
" Now hearken, Conscript Fathers, 

To that which I advise. 
In seasons of great peril 

'Tis good that one bear sway ; 
Then choose we a Dictator, 

Whom all men shall obey. 
Camerium knows how deeply 

The sword of Aulus bites ; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. iOl 

And all our city calls him 

The man of seventy fights. 
Then let him be Dictator 

For six months and no more, 
And have a Master of the Knights, 

And axes twenty -four." 



9. 

So Aulus was Dictator, 

The man of seventy fights ; 
He made vEbutius Elva 

His Master of the Knights. 
On the third morn thereafter, 

At dawning of the day, 
Did Aulus and iEbutius 

Set forth with their array. 
Sempronius Atratinus 

Was left in charge at home 
With boys, and with grey-headed men, 

To keep the walls of Rome. 
Hard by the Lake Segillus 

Our camp was pitched at night ; 
Eastward a mile the Latines lay, 

Under the Porcian height. 



102 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Far over hill and valley 

Their mighty host was spread ; 

And with their thousand watch-fires 
The midnight sky was red. 



10. 

Up rose the golden morning 

Over the Porcian height, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Marked evermore with white. 
Not without secret trouble 

Our bravest saw the foes, 
For girt by threescore thousand spears, 

The thirty standards rose. 
From every warlike city 

That boasts the Latian name, 
Foredoomed to dogs and vultures, 

That gallant army came ; 
From Setia's purple vineyards, 

From Norba's ancient wall, 
From the white streets of Tusculum, 

The proudest town of all ; 
From where the Witch's Fortress 

O'erhangs the dark-blue seas, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS. 103 

From the still glassy hike that sleeps 

Beneath Aricia's trees — 
Those trees in whose dim shadow 

The ghastly priest doth reign, 
The priest who slew the slayer, 

And shall himself be slain ; — 
From the drear banks of Ufens, 

Where flights of marsh-fowl play, 
And buffaloes lie wallowing 

Through the hot summer's day ; 
From the gigantic watch-towers, 

JSTo work of earthly men, 
Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlook 

The never-ending fen ; 
From the Laurentian jungle, 

The wild hog's reedy home ; 
From the green steeps whence Anio leaps 

In floods of snow-white foam. 



11. 

Aricia, Cora, Norba, 
Velitraa, with the might 

Of Setia and of Tusculum, 

Were marshalled on their right ; 



104 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Their leader was Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
Upon his head a helmet 

Of red gold shone like flame : 
High on a gallant charger 

Of dark-grey hue he rode ; 
Over his gilded armour 

A vest of purple flowed, 
Woven in the land of sunrise 

By Syria's dark-brow eel daughters, 
And by the sails of Carthage brought 

Far o'er the southern waters. 

12. 

Lavinium and Laurentum 

Had on the left their post, 
With all the banners of the marsh, 

And banners of the coast. 
Their leader was false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame : 
With restless pace and haggard face, 

To his last field he came. 
Men said he saw strange visions, 

Which none beside might see ; 
And that strange sounds were in his ears, 

Which none might hear but he. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 105 

A woman fair and stately, 

But pale as are the dead, 
Oft through the watches of the night 

Sate spinning by his bed. 
And as she plied the distaff, 

In a sweet voice and low, 
She sang of great old houses, 

And fights fought long ago. 
So spun she, and so sang she, 

Until the east was grey ; 
Then pointed to her bleeding breast, 

And shrieked, and fled away. 



13. 

But in the centre thickest 

Were ranged the shields of foes, 
And from the centre loudest 

The cry of battle rose, 
There Tibur marched and Pedum 

Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, 
And Ferentinum of the rock, 

And Gabii of the pool. 
There rode the Volscian succours : 

There, in a dark stern ring, 



106 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The Roman exiles gathered close 

Around the ancient king. 
Though white as Mount Soracte, 

When winter nights are long, 
His beard flowed down o'er mail and belt^ 

His heart and hand were strong : 
Under his hoary eyebrows 

Still flashed forth quenchless rage : 
And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 

'Twas more with hate than age. 
Close at his side was Titus 

On an Apulian steed, 
Titus, the youngest Tarquin, 

Too a;ood for such a breed, 



14. 

Now on each side the leaders 

Gave signal for the charge ; 
And on each side the footmen 

Strode on with lance and targe ; 
And on each side the horsemen 

Struck their spurs deep in gore, 
And front to front the armies 

Met with a mighty roar : 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 107 

And under that great battle 

The earth with blood was red ; 
And, like the Pomptine fog at morn, 

The dust hung overhead ; 
And louder still and louder, 

Rose from the darkened field 
The braying of the war-horns, 

The clang of sword and shield. 
The rush of squadrons sweeping! 1 

Like whirlwinds o'er the plain. 
The shouting of the slayers, 

And screeching of the slain. 



15. 

False Sextus rode out foremost : 

His look was high and bold; 
His corslet was of bison's hide, 

Plated with steel and gold. 
As glares the famished eagle 

From the Digentian rock, 
On a choice lamb that bounds alone 

Before Bandusia's flock, 
Herminius glared on Sextus, 

And came with eagle speed ; 



308 LAYS OF ANCIENT EOME. 

Herniinius on black Auster, 

Brave champion on brave steed ; 
In his right hand the broadsword 

That kept the bridge so well, 
And on his helm the crown he won 

When proud Fideme fell. 
Woe to the maid whose lover 

Shall cross his path to-day ! 
False Sextus saw, and trembled, 

And turned, and fled away. 
As turns, as flies, the woodman 

In the Calabrian brake, 
When through the reeds gleams the round eye 

Of that fell painted snake ; 
So turned, so fled, false Sextus, 

And hid him in the rear, 
Behind the dark Lavinian ranks, 

Bristling with crest and spear. 

16. 

Then far to north .ZEbutius, 

The Master of the Knights, 
Gave Tubero of Norba 

To feed the Porcian kites. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE EEGILLUS. 109 

Next under those red horse-hoofs 

Flaccus of Setia lay ; 
Better had he been pruning 

Among his elms that day. 
Mamilius saw the slaughter, 

And tossed his golden crest, 
And towards the Master of the Knights 

Through the thick battle pressed. 
-ZEbutius smote Mamilius 

So fiercely on the shield, 
That the great lord of Tusculum 

Well nigh rolled on the field. 
Mamilius smote .ZEbutius, 

With a good aim and true, 
Just where the neck and shoulder join, 

And pierced him through and through ; 
And brave iEbutius Elva 

Fell swooning to the ground : 
But a thick wall of bucklers 

Encompassed him around. 
His clients from the battle 

Bare him some little space ; 
And filled a helm from the dark lake, 

And bathed his brow and face : 



110 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And when at last he opened 

His swimming eyes to light, 
Men say, the earliest word he spake 

Was, " Friends, how goes the fight ? " 

17. 

But meanwhile in the centre 

Great deeds of arms were wrought ; 
There Aulus the Dictator, 

And there Valerius fought. 
Aulus, with his good broadsword, 

A bloody passage cleared 
To where, amidst the thickest foes, 

He saw the long white beard. 
Flat lighted that good broadsword 

Upon proud Tarquin's head. 
He dropped the lance : he dropped the reins : 

He fell as fall the dead. 
Down Aulus springs to slay him, 

With eyes like coals of fire ; 
But faster Titus hath sprung down, 

And hath bestrode his sire. 
Latian captains, Roman knights, 

Fast down to earth they spring, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REG1LLUS. Ill 

And hand to hand they fight on foot 

Around the ancient king. 
First Titus gave tall Casso 

A death wound in the face ; 
Tall Caeso was the bravest man 

Of the brave Fabian race : 
Aulus slew Rex of Gabii, 

The priest of Juno's shrine : 
Valerius smote down Julius, 

Of Rome's great Julian line ; 
Julius, who left his mansion 

High on the Velian hill, 
And through all turns of weal and woe 

Followed proud Tarquin still. 
Now right across proud Tarquin 

A corpse was Julius laid ; 
And Titus groaned with rage and grief, 

And at Valerius made. 
Valerius struck at Titus, 

And lopped off half his crest ; 
But Titus stabbed Valerius 

A span deep in the breast. 
Like a mast snapped by the tempest, 

Valerius reeled and fell, 



112 LAY- H ASCIK8T BOMB 

Ah :- me for the good house 

That loves the people well ! 
Then shfcuted loud the Lav 

An 1 witttj one rush they bore 
Ehe -:~^J^ig1|forcLans backward 

Three knees" f earth and more : 
And up tie* to«kf>roud Tarrjuin. 

Laid wn'y shield. 
And : m 3tz .:._ f ... -.. 

StiU e • -. from the field. 



18. 

But fiercer grew the righting 

Around "Valerius d 
F 3 -• Titus dragged him by the foot, 

And Aulas by the head. 

•• On. Larine=. .n I ".quoth 'L. 



•• v :r how the rebel- Sy 
•• Bomans, 3tasd firm ! ~ quoth Aulus. 

••" And win this fight or die ! 
They must not give Valerius 

1 3 raven and to kite ; 
For aye Valerius loathed the wrong 

And aye nphe] " the dght : 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 113 

And for your wives and babies 

In the front rank he fell. 
Now play the men for the good house 

That loves the people well !" 

19. 
Then tenfold round the body 

The roar of battle rose, 
Like the roar of a burning forest, 

When a strong northwind blows. 
Now backward, and now forward, 

Rocked furiously the fray, 
Till none could see Valerius, 

And none wist where he lay. 
For shivered arms and ensigns 

Were heaped there in a mound, 
And corpses stiff, and dying men 

That writhed and gnawed the ground ; 
And wounded horses kicking, 

And snorting purple foam : 
Right well did such a couch befit 

A Consular of Rome. 

20. 
But north looked the Dictator ; 
North looked he long and hard ; 
P 



114 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME, 

And spake to Cams Cossus, 
The Captain of his Guard : 

" Caius, of all the Romans 
Thou hast the keenest sight ; 

Say, what through yonder storm of dust 
Comes from the Latian right ? " 

21. 

Then answered Caius Cossus : 

" I see an evil sight ; 
The banner of proud Tusculum 

Comes from the Latian right ', 
I see the plumed horsemen ; 

And far before the rest 
I see the dark-grey charger, 

I see the purple vest ; 
I see the golden helmet 

That shines far off like flame ; 
So ever rides Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name." 

22. 

" Now hearken, Caius Cossus : 
Spring on thy horse's back ; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 115 

Ride as the wolves of Apennine 

Were all upon thy track ! 
Haste to our southward battle ; 

And never draw thy rein 
Until thou find Herminius, 

And bid him come amain." 



23. 

So Aulus spake, and turned him 

Again to that fierce strife ; 
4nd Caius Cossus mounted, 

And rode for death and life. 
Loud clanged beneath his horse-hoofs 

The helmets of the dead, 
And many a curdling pool of blood 

Splashed him from heel to head. 
So came he far to southward, 

Where fought the Roman host, 
Against the banners of the marsh 

And banners of the coast. 
Like corn before the sickle 

The stout Lavinians fell, 
Beneath the edge of the true sword 

That kept the bridge so well. 



116 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

24. 

" Herminius ! Aulus greets thee ; 

He bids thee come with speed, 
To help our central battle ; 

For sore is there our need. 
There wars the youngest Tarquin, 

And there the Crest of Flame, 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 
Valerius hath fallen fighting 

In front of our array ; 
And Aulus of the seventy fields 

Alone upholds the day." 



25. 



Herminius beat his bosom ; 

But never a word he spake. 
He clapped his hand on Auster's mane ; 

He gave the reins a shake, 
Away, away, went Auster, 

Like an arrow from the bow : 
Black Auster was the fleetest steed 

From Aufidus to Po. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 117 

26. 
Right glad were all the Romans 

Who, in that hour of dread, 
Against great odds bare up the war 

Around Valerius dead, 
When from the south the cheering 

Rose with a mighty swell ; 
" Herminius comes, Herminius, 

Who kept the bridge so well ! " 

27. 
Mamilius spied Herminius, 

And dashed across the way. 
" Herminius ! I have sought thee 

Through many a bloody day. 
One of us two, Herminius, 

Shall never more go home. 
I will lay on for Tusculum, 

And lay thou on for Rome ! " 

28. 
All round them paused the battle, 

While met in mortal fray 
The Roman and the Tusculan, 

The horses black and grey. 



118 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Herminius smote Mamilius 

Through breast-plate and through breast 
And fast flowed out the purple blood 

Over the purple vest. 
Mamilius smote Herminius 

Through head-piece and through head ; 
And side by side those chiefs of pride 

Together fell down dead. 
Down fell they dead together 

In a great lake of gore ; 
And still stood all who saw them fall 

While men might count a score. 

29. 
Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, 

The dark-grey charger fled : 
He burst through ranks of fighting men ; 

He sprang o'er heaps of dead. 
His bridle far out-streaming, 

His flanks all blood and foam, 
He sought the southern mountains, 

The mountains of his home. 
The pass was steep and rugged, 

The wolves they howled and whined ; 
But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass, 

And he left the wolves behind. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 119 

Through many a startled hamlet 

Thundered his flying feet : 
He rushed through the gate of Tusculum, 

He rushed up the long white street ; 
He rushed by tower and temple, 

And paused not from his race 
Till he stood before his master's door 

In the stately market-place. 
And straightway round him gathered 

A pale and trembling crowd, 
And when they knew him, cries of rage 

Brake forth, and wailing loud : 
And women rent their tresses 

For their great prince's fall ; 
And old men girt on their old swords, 

And went to man the wall. 



30. 

But, like a graven image, 
Black Auster kept his place, 

And ever wistfully he looked 
Into his master's face. 

The raven-mane that daily, 
With pats and fond caresses, 



120 LAYS OF ANCIENT SOME. 

The young Herminia washed and combed, 

And twined in even tresses, 
And decked with coloured ribands 

From her own gay attire, 
Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse 

In carnage and in mire. 
Forth with a shout sprang Titus, 

And seized black Auster's rein. 
Then Aulus sware a fearful oath, 

And ran at him amain. 
" The furies of thy brother 

With me and mine abide, 
If one of your accursed house 

Upon black Auster ride ! " 
As on an Alpine watch-tower 

From heaven comes down the flame, 
Full on the neck of Titus 

The blade of Aulus came : 
And out the red blood spouted, 

In a wide arch and tall, 
As spouts a fountain in the court 

Of some rich Capuan's hall. 
The knees of all the Latines 

Were loosened with dismay 
When dead, on dead Herminius, 

The bravest Tarquin lay. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 12 1 
31. 

And Aulus the Dictator 

Stroked Auster's raven mane, 
With heed he looked unto the girths. 

With heed unto the rein. 
" Now bear me well, black Auster, 

Into yon thick array ; 
And thou and I will have revenge 

For thy good lord this day." 

32. 

So spake he ; and was buckling 

Tighter black Auster's band, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

That rode at his right hand. 
So like they were, no mortal 

Might one from other know : 
White as snow their armour was : 

Their steeds were white as snow. 
Never on earthly anvil 

Did such rare armour gleam ; 
And never did such gallant steeds 

Drink of an earthly stream. 
Q 



122 LAYS OF ANCIENT HOME. 

33. 

And all who saAv them trembled* 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Aulus the Dictator 

Scarce gathered voice to speak. 
" Say by what name men call you ? 

What city is your home ? 
And wherefore ride ye in such guise 

Before the ranks of Home ? " 

34. 

" By many names men call us ; 

In many lands we dwell : 
Well Samothracia knows us ; 

Cyrene knows us well. 
Our house in gay Tarentum 

Is hung each morn with flowers : 
High o'er the masts of Syracuse 

Our marble portal towers ; 
But by the proud Eurotas 

Is our dear native home ; 
And for the right we come to fight 

Before the ranks of Rome." 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 123 

35. 

So answered those strange horsemen, 

And each couched low his spear ; 
And forthwith all the ranks of Rome 

Were bold, and of good cheer : 
And on the thirty armies 

Came wonder and affright, 
And Ardea wavered on the left, 

And Cora on the right. 
" Rome to the charge ! " cried Aulus ; 

" The foe begins to yield ! 
Charge for the hearth of Vesta ! 

Charge for the Golden Shield ! 
Let no man stop to plunder, 

But slay, and slay, and slay ; 
The Grods who live for ever 

Are on our side to-day." 



36. 

Then the fierce trumpet-flourish 

From earth to heaven arose, 
The kites know well the long stern swell 

That bids the Romans close. 



124 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Then the good sword of Aulus 

Was lifted up to slay : 
Then, like a crag down Apennine, 

Rushed Auster through the fray. 
But under those strange horsemen 

Still thicker lay the slain ; 
And after those strange horses 

Black Auster toiled in vain. 
Behind them Rome's long battle 

Came rolling on the foe, 
Ensigns dancing wild above, 

Blades all in line below. 
So comes the Po in flood-time 

Upon the Celtic plain : 
So comes the squall, blacker than night, 

Upon the Adrian main. 
Now, by our Sire Quirinus, 

It was a goodly sight 
To see the thirty standards 

Swept down the tide of flight. 
So flies the spray of Adria 

When the black squall doth blow ; 
So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 

Spin down the whirling Po, 






BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 125 

False Sextus to the mountains 

Turned first his horse's head ; 
And fast fled Ferentinum, 

And fast Lanuvium fled. 
The horsemen of Nomentum 

Spurred hard out of the fray ; 
The footmen of Velitrae 

Threw shield and spear away. 
And underfoot was trampled, 

Amidst the mud and gore, 
The banner of proud Tusculum, 

That never stooped before : 
And down went Flavius Faustus, 

Who led his stately ranks 
From where the apple blossoms wave 

On Anio's echoing banks, 
And Tullus of Arpinum, 

Chief of the Volscian aids, 
And Metius with the long fair curls, 

The love of Anxur's maids, 
And the white head of Vulso, 

The great Arician seer, 
And Nepos of Laurentum, 

The hunter of the deer ; 



126 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And in the back false Sextus 

Felt the good Roman steel, 
And wriggling in the dust he died, 

Like a worm beneath the wheel 
And fliers and pursuers 

Were mingled in a mass ; 
And far away the battle 

Went roaring through the pass. 



37. 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Sate in the Eastern Gate, 
Beside him were three Fathers, 

Each in his chair of state ; 
Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons 

That day were in the field, 
And Manlius, eldest of the Twelve 

Who keep the Golden Shield ; 
And Sergius, the High Pontiff, 

For wisdom far renowned ; 
In all Etruria's colleges 

Was no such Pontiff found. 
And all around the portal, 

And high above the wall, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 127 

Stood a great throng of people, 

But sad and silent all ; 
Young lads, and stooping elders 

That might not bear the mail, 
Matrons with lips that quivered, 

And maids with faces pale. 
Since the first gleam of day-light, 

Sempronius had not ceased 
To listen for the rushing 

Of horse-hoofs from the east. 
The mist of eve was rising, 

The sun was hastening down, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

Fast pricking towards the town. 
So like they were, man never 

Saw twins so like before ; 
Red with gore their armour was, 

Their steeds were red with gore. 



38. 



Hail to the great Asylum ! 



Hail to the hill-tops 



s seven 



Hail to the fire that burns for aye, 
And the shield that fell from heaven ! 



128 LAYS OF ANCIENT KOME. 

This day, by Lake Regillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum 

Was fought a glorious fight. 
To-morrow your Dictator 

Shall bring in triumph home 
The spoils of thirty cities 

To deck the shrines of Rome ! " 



39, 

Then burst from that great concourse 

A shout that shook the towers, 
And some ran north, and some ran south, 

Crying, " The day is ours ! " 
But on rode these strange horsemen, 

With slow and lordly pace ; 
And none who saw their bearing 

Durst ask their name or race. 
On rode they to the Forum, 

While laurel-boughs and flowers, 
From house-tops and from windows, 

Fell on their crests in showers. 
When they drew nigh to Vesta, 

They vaulted down amain, 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 129 

And washed their horses in the well 

That springs by Vesta's fane. 
And straight again they mounted, 

And rode to Vesta's door; 
Then, like a blast, away they passed, 

And no man saw them more. 



40. 

And all the people trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Sergius the High Pontiff 

Alone found voice to speak : 
" The Gods who live for ever 

Have fought for Rome to-day ! 
These be the Great Twin Brethren 

To whom the Dorians pray. 
Back comes the Chief in triumph, 

Who, in the hour of fight, 
Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren 

In harness on his right. 
Safe comes the ship to haven, 

Through billows and through gales, 
If once the Great Twin Brethren 

Sit shining on the sails. 
E 



130 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Wherefore they washed their horses 

In Vesta's holy well, 
Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door 3 

I know, but may not tell. 
Here, hard by Vesta's temple, 

Build we a stately dome 
Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Who fought so well for Rome. 
And when the months returning 

Bring back this day of fight, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis, 

Marked evermore with white, 
Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Let all the people throng, 
With chaplets and Avith offerings, 

With music and with song ; 
And let the doors and windows 

Be hung with garlands all, 
And let the Knights be summoned 

To Mars without the wall : 
Thence let them ride in purple 

With joyous trumpet-sound, 
Each mounted on his war-horse, 

And each with olive crowned ; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 131 

And pass in solemn order 

Before the sacred dome, 
Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren 

Who fought so well for Rome." 



VIRGINIA. 



VIRGINIA. 



A collection consisting exclusively of war- 
songs would give an imperfect, or rather an 
erroneous, notion of the spirit of the old Latin 
ballads. The Patricians, during more than a 
century after the expulsion of the Kings, held 
all the high military commands. A Plebeian, 
even though, like Lucius Siccius, he were distin- 
guished by his valour and knowledge of war, 
could serve only in subordinate posts. A min- 
strel, therefore, who wished to celebrate the early 
triumphs of his country, could hardly take any 
but Patricians for his heroes. The warriors 
who are mentioned in the two preceding lays, 
Horatius, Lartius, Herminius, Aulus Posthumius, 
iEbutius Elva, Sempronius Atratinus, Valerius 
Poplicola, were all members of the dominant 



136 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

order ; and a poet who was singing their praises, 
whatever his own political opinions might be, 
would naturally abstain from insulting the class 
to which they belonged, and from reflecting on 
the system which had placed such men at the 
head of the legions of the Commonwealth. 

But there was a class of compositions in which 
the great families were by no means so cour- 
teously treated. No parts of early Roman his- 
tory are richer with poetical colouring than those 
which relate to the long contest between the pri- 
vileged houses and the commonalty. The popu- 
lation of Rome was, from a very early period, 
divided into hereditary castes, which, indeed, 
readily united to repel foreign enemies, but 
which regarded each other, during many years, 
with bitter animosity. Between those castes 
there was a barrier hardly less strong than that 
which, at Venice, parted the members of the 
Great Council from their countrymen. In some 
respects, indeed, the line which separated an 
Icilius or a Duilius from a Posthuinius or a Fabius 
was even more deeply marked than that which 



VIRGINIA. 137 

separated the rower of a gondola from a Conta- 
rini or a Morosini. At Venice the distinction 
was merely civil. At Rome it was both civil and 
religious. Among the grievances under which 
the Plebeians suffered, three were felt as pecu- 
liarly severe. They were excluded from the 
highest magistracies; they were excluded from 
all share in the public lands; and they were 
ground down to the dust by partial and bar- 
barous legislation touching pecuniary contracts. 
The ruling class in Rome was a monied class; 
and it made and administered the laws with 
a view solely to its own interest. Thus the 
relation between lender and borrower was mixed 
up with the relation between sovereign and 
subject. The great men held a large portion of 
the community in dependence by means of ad- 
vances at enormous usury. The law of debt, 
framed by creditors, and for the protection 
of creditors, was the most horrible that has 
ever been known among men. The liberty, 
and even the life, of the insolvent were at the 
mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. Children 



138 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

often became slaves in consequence of the mis- 
fortunes of their parents. The debtor was 
imprisoned, not in a public gaol under the care 
of impartial public functionaries, but in a private 
workhouse belonging to the creditor. Frightful 
stories were told respecting these dungeons. It 
was said that torture and brutal violation were 
common ; that tight stocks, heavy chains, scanty 
measures of food, were used to punish wretches 
guilty of nothing but poverty ; and that brave sol- 
diers, whose breasts were covered with honour- 
able scars, were often marked still more deeply 
on the back by the scourges of high-born usurers. 
The Plebeians were, however, not wholly with- 
out constitutional rights. From an early period 
they had been admitted to some share of political 
power. They were enrolled in the centuries, and 
were allowed a share, considerable though not 
proportioned to their numerical strength, in the 
disposal of those high dignities from which they 
were themselves excluded. Thus their position 
bore some resemblance to that of the Irish Catho- 
lics during the interval between the year 1792 



VIRGINIA. 139 

and the year 1829. The Plebeians had also the 
privilege of annually appointing officers, named 
Tribunes, who had no active share in the govern- 
ment of the Commonwealth, but who, by degrees, 
acquired a power which made them formidable 
even to the ablest and most resolute Consuls 
and Dictators. The person of the Tribune was 
inviolable ; and, though he could directly effect 
little, he could obstruct every thing. 

During more than a century after the institu- 
tion of the Tribuneship, the Commons struggled 
manfully for the removal of the grievances under 
which they laboured ; and, in spite of many 
checks and reverses, succeeded in wringing con- 
cession after concession from the stubborn aris- 
tocracy. At length, in the year of the city 378, 
both parties mustered their whole strength for 
their last and most desperate conflict. The 
popular and active Tribune, Caius Licinius, pro- 
posed the three memorable laws which are called 
by his name, and which were intended to redress 
the three great evils of which the Plebeians com- 
plained. He was supported, with eminent ability 



140 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

and firmness, by his colleague, Lucius Sextius. 
The struggle appears to have been the fiercest 
that ever in any community terminated without 
an appeal to arms. If such a contest had 
raged in any Greek city, the streets would have 
run with blood. But, even in the paroxysms of 
faction, the Eoman retained his gravity, his re- 
spect for law, and his tenderness for the lives of 
his fellow-citizens. Year after year Licinius and 
Sextius were re-elected Tribunes. Year after 
year, if the narrative which has come down to us 
is to be trusted, they continued to exert, to the 
full extent, their power of stopping the whole 
machine of government. No curule magistrates 
could be chosen; no military muster could be 
held. We know too little of the state of Rome 
in those days to be able to conjecture how, 
during that long anarchy, the peace was kept, and 
ordinary justice administered between man and 
man. The animosity of both parties rose to the 
greatest height. The excitement, we may well 
suppose, would have been peculiarly intense at the 
annual election of Tribunes. On such occasions 



VIRGINIA. 141 

there can be little doubt that the great families 
did all that could be done, by threats and ca- 
resses, to break the union of the Plebeians. That 
union, however, proved indissoluble. At length 
the good cause triumphed. The Licinian laws 
were carried. Lucius Sextius was the first 
Plebeian Consul, Caius Licinius the third. 

The results of this great change were singu- 
larly happy and glorious. Two centuries of 
prosperity, harmony, and victory followed the 
reconciliation of the orders. Men who remem- 
bered Eome engaged in waging petty wars 
almost within sight of the Capitol lived to see 
her the mistress of Italy. While the disabilities 
of the Plebeians continued, she was scarcely able 
to maintain her ground against the Yolscians 
and Hernicans. When those disabilities were 
removed, she rapidly became more than a match 
for Carthage and Macedon. 

During the great Licinian contest the Plebeian 
poets were, doubtless, not silent. Even in mo- 
dern times songs have been by no means with- 
out influence on public affairs ; and we may 



142 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

therefore infer, that, in a society where printing 
was unknown, and where books were rare, a 
pathetic or humorous party-ballad must have 
produced effects such as we can but faintly con- 
ceive. It is certain that satirical poems were 
common at Rome from a very early period. 
The rustics, who lived at a distance from the 
seat of government, and took little part in the 
strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local 
animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. The 
lampoons of the city were doubtless of a higher 
order; and their sting was early felt by the 
nobility. For in the Twelve Tables, long be- 
fore the time of the Licinian laws, a severe 
punishment was denounced against the citizen 
who should compose or recite verses reflecting 
on another.* Satire is, indeed, the only sort 
of composition in which the Latin poets, whose 
works have come down to us, were not mere 

* Cicero justly infers from this law that there had been early 
Latin poets whose works had been lost before his time. " Quam- 
quam id quidem etiam xii tabulse declarant, condi jam turn solitum 
esse carmen, quod ne liceret fieri ad alterius injuriam lege sanxe- 
runt." — Tusc. iv. 2. 



VIRGINIA. 143 

imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore 
the only sort of composition in which they 
have never been rivalled. It was not, like their 
tragedy, their comedy, their epic and lyric 
poetry, a hothouse plant which, in return for 
assiduous and skilful culture, gave only scanty 
and sickly fruits. It was hardy, and full of sap ; 
and in all the various juices which it yielded 
might be distinguished the flavour of the Au- 
sonian soil. " Satire," said Quintilian, with just 
pride, "is all our own." It sprang, in truth, 
naturally from the constitution of the Roman 
government and from the spirit of the Roman 
people ; and, though it submitted to metrical rules 
derived from Greece, it retained to the last its 
essentially Roman character. Lucilius was the 
earliest satirist whose works were held in esteem 
under the Caesars. But, many years before 
Lucilius was born, Nsevius had been flung 
into a dungeon, and guarded there with cir- 
cumstances of unusual rigour till the Tribunes 
interfered in his behalf, on account of the 
bitter lines in which he had attacked the great 



144 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Csecilian family.* The genius and spirit of 
the Eoman satirists survived the liberties of their 
country, and were not extinguished by the cruel 
despotism of the Julian and Flavian Emperors. 
The great poet who told the story of Domitian's 
turbot was the legitimate successor of those 
forgotten minstrels whose songs animated the 
factions of the infant Republic. 

Those minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, 
appear to have generally taken the popular side. 
We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that, at 
the great crisis of the civil conflict, they employed 
themselves in versifying all the most powerful 
and virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and in 
heaping abuse on the chiefs of the aristocracy. 
Every personal defect, every domestic scandal, 
every tradition dishonourable to a noble house, 
would be sought out, brought into notice, and 
exaggerated. The illustrious head of the aristo- 
cratical party, Marcus Furius Camillus, might 
perhaps be, in some measure, protected by his 

* Plautus, Miles Gloriosus. Aulus Gellius, iii. 3. 



VIRGINIA. 145 

venerable age and by the memory of his great 
services to the State. But Appius Claudius 
Crassus enjoyed no such immunity. He was de- 
scended from a long line of ancestors distinguished 
by their haughty demeanour, and by the inflexi- 
bility with which they had withstood all the de- 
mands of the Plebeian order. While the political 
conduct and the deportment of the Claudian 
nobles drew upon them the fiercest public hatred, 
they were wanting, if any credit is due to the 
early history of Kome, in a class of qualities which, 
in a military Commonwealth, is sufficient to cover 
a multitude of offences. Several of them appear 
to have been eloquent, versed in civil business, 
and learned after the fashion of their age ; but 
in war they were not distinguished by skill or 
valour. Some of them, as if conscious where 
their weakness lay, had, when filling the highest 
magistracies, taken internal administration as 
their department of public business, and left the 
military command to their colleagues.* One of 

* In the years of the city 260, 304, and 330. 
T 



146 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

them had been intrusted with an army, and had 
failed ignominiously.* None of them had been 
honoured with a triumph. None of them had 
achieved any martial exploit, such as those by 
which Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Titus 
Quinctius Capitolinus, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, 
and, above all, the great Camillus, had extorted 
the reluctant esteem of the multitude. During 
the Licinian conflict, Appius Claudius Crassus 
signalised himself by the ability and severity 
with which he harangued against the two great 
agitators. He would naturally, therefore, be the 
favourite mark of the Plebeian satirists ; nor 
would they have been at a loss to find a point 
on which he was open to attack. 

His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius 
Claudius, had left a name as much detested as 
that of Sextus Tarquinius. This elder Appius 
had been Consul more than seventy years before 
the introduction of the Licinian laws. By avail- 
ing himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, 

* In the year of the city 282. 



VIRGINIA. 147 

he had obtained the consent of the Commons to 
the abolition of the Tribuneship, and had been 
the chief of that Council of Ten to which the 
whole direction of the State had been committed. 
In a few months his administration had become 
universally odious. It had been swept away by 
an irresistible outbreak of popular fury ; and its 
memory was still held in abhorrence by the whole 
city. The immediate cause of the downfall of 
this execrable government was said to have been 
an attempt made by Appius Claudius on the 
chastity of a beautiful young girl of humble 
birth. The story ran, that the Decemvir, unable 
to succeed by bribes and solicitations, resorted 
to an outrageous act of tyranny. A vile de- 
pendent of the Claudian house laid claim to the 
damsel as his slave. The cause was brought 
before the tribunal of Appius. The wicked 
magistrate, in defiance of the clearest proofs, 
gave judgment for the claimant. But the girl's 
father, a brave soldier, saved her from servitude 
and dishonour by stabbing her to the heart in 
the sight of the whole Forum. That blow was 



148 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

the signal for a general explosion. Camp and 
city rose at once; the Ten were pulled down; 
the Tribuneship was re-established ; and Appius 
escaped the hands of the executioner only by a 
voluntary death. 

It can hardly be doubted that a story so ad- 
mirably adapted to the purposes both of the poet 
and of the demagogue would be eagerly seized 
upon by minstrels burning with hatred against 
the Patrician order, against the Claudian house, 
and especially against the grandson and name- 
sake of the infamous Decemvir. 

In order that the reader may judge fairly of 
these fragments of the lay of Virginia, he must 
imagine himself a Plebeian who has just voted for 
the re-election of Sextius and Licinius. All the 
power of the Patricians has been exerted to throw 
out the two great champions of the Commons . 
Every Posthumius, iEmilius, and Cornelius has 
used his influence to the utmost. Debtors 
have been let out of the workhouses on condition 
of voting against the men of the people ; clients 
have been posted to hiss and interrupt the fa- 



VIRGINIA, 149 

vourite candidates ; Appius Claudius Crassus has 
spoken with more than his usual eloquence and 
asperity : all has been in vain ; Licinius and 
Sextius have a fifth time carried all the tribes ; 
work is suspended ; the booths are closed ; the 
Plebeians bear on their shoulders the two cham- 
pions of liberty through the Forum. Just at this 
moment it is announced that a popular poet, a 
zealous adherent of the Tribunes, has made a new 
song which will cut the Claudian family to the 
heart. The crowd gathers round him, and calls 
on him to recite it. He takes his stand on the 
spot where, according to tradition, Virginia, 
more than seventy years ago, was seized by the 
pandar of Appius, and he begins his story. 



VIRGINIA. 



FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUM ON THE DAY WHEREON LUCIUS 
SEXTIUS SEXT1NUS LATERANUS AND CAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO WERE 
ELECTED TRIBUNES OF THE COMMONS THE FIFTH TIME, IN THE YEAR OF THE 
CITY CCCLXXXII. 



Ye good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and true, 

Who stand by the bold Tribunes, that still have stood by you, 

Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale with care, 

A tale of what Rome once hath borne, of what Rome yet may bear. 

This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running wine, 

Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to swine. 

Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday sun, 

In sight of all the people, the bloody deed was done. 

Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day, 

Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten bare sway. 

Of all the wicked Ten still the names are held accursed, 
And of all the wicked Ten Appius Claudius was the worst. 
He stalked along the Forum like King Tarquin in his pride : 
Twelve axes waited on him, six marching on a side ; 



152 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed askance with fear 
His lowering brow, his curling mouth which alway seemed to sneer: 
That brow of hate, that mouth of scorn, marks all the kindred still ; 
For never was there Claudius yet but wished the Commons ill : 
Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close behind his heels, 
With outstretched chin and crouching pace, the client Marcus 

steals, 
His loins girt up to run with speed, be the errand what it may, 
And the smile flickering on his cheek, for aught his lord may say. 
Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the lying Greeks : 
Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave Licinius speaks. 
Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies will crowd ; 
Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud ; 
Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see ; 
And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be. 

Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a black stormy sky 
Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl came by. 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, 
Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed of shame 

or harm ; 
And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran, 
With bright, frank brow that had not learned to blush at gaze of 

man; 
And up the Sacred Street she turned, and, as she danced along, 
She warbled gaily to herself lines of the good old song, 



VIRGINIA. 153 

How for a sport the princes came spurring from the camp, 
And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the midnight lamp. 
The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he darts his flight, 
From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the morning 

light; 
And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her sweet 

young face, 

And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed race, 
And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street, 
His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet. 

Over the Alban mountains the light of morning broke ; 
From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of 

smoke : 
The city-gates were opened ; the Forum, all alive, 
With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive : 
Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing, 
And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was singing, 
And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home : 
Ah ! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome ! 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, 
Forth she went bounding to the school, nor dreamed of shame or 

harm. 
She crossed the Forum shining with stalls in alleys gay, 
And just had reached the very spot whereon I stand this day, 



154 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

When up the varlet Marcus came ; not such as when erewhile 
He crouched behind his patron's heels with the true client smile : 
He came with lowering forehead, swollen features, and clenched fist, 
And strode across Virginia's path, and caught her by the wrist. 
Hard strove the frighted maiden, and screamed with look aghast ; 
And at her scream from right and left the folk came running 

fast ; 
The money-changer Crispus, with his thin silver hairs, 
And Hanno from the stately booth glittering with Punic wares, 
And the strong smith Murama, grasping a half-forged brand, 
And Volero the flesher, his cleaver in his hand. 
All came in wrath and wonder ; for all knew that fair child ; 
And, as she passed them twice a day, all kissed their hands and 

smiled ; 
And the strong smith Murasna gave Marcus such a blow, 
The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the maiden go. 
Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in harsh, fell tone, 
{S She 's mine, and I will have her : I seek but for mine own : 
She is my slave, born in my house, and stolen away and sold, 
The year of the sore sickness, ere she was twelve hours old. 
'Twas in the sad September, the month of wail and fright, 
Two augurs were borne forth that morn; the Consul died ere 

night. 
I wait on Appius Claudius ; I waited on his sire : 
Let him who works the client wrong beware the patron's ire ! " 



VIRGINIA. 155 

So spake the varlet Marcus ; and dread and silence came 
On all the people at the sound of the great Claudian name. 
For then there was no Tribune to speak the word of might, 
Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards the poor man's 

right. 
There was no brave Licinius, no honest Sextius then ; 
But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked Ten. 
Yet ere the varlet Marcus again might seize the maid, 
Who clung tight to Murama's skirt, and sobbed, and shrieked for 

aid, 
Forth through the throng of gazers the young Icilius pressed, 
And stamped his foot, and rent his gown, and smote upon his 

breast, 
And sprang upon that column, by many a minstrel sung, 
Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rusting swords, are hung, 
And beckoned to the people, and in bold voice and clear 
Poured thick and fast the burning words which tyrants quake to 

hear. 

" Now, by your children's cradles, now, by your fathers' graves, 
l I I I 

Be men to-day, Quirites, or be for ever slaves ! 

For this did Servius give us laws ? For this did Lucrece bleed ? 

For this was the great vengeance wrought on Tarquin's evil seed ? 

For this did those false sons make red the axes of their sire ? 

For this did Sca3vola's right hand hiss in the Tuscan fire ? 



156 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Shall the vile fox-earth awe the race that stormed the lion's den ? 
Shall we, who could not brook one lord, crouch to the wicked 

Ten? 
Oh for that ancient spirit which curbed the Senate's will ! 
Oh for the tents which in old time whitened the Sacred Hill ! 
In those brave days our fathers stood firmly side by side ; 
They faced the Marcian fury ; they tamed the Fabian pride : 
They drove the fiercest Quinctius an outcast forth from Rome ; 
They sent the haughtiest Claudius with shivered fasces home. 
But what their care bequeathed us our madness flung away : 
All the ripe fruit of threescore years was blighted in a day. 
Exult, ye proud Patricians ! The hard-fought fight is o'er. 
We strove for honours — 'twas in vain : for freedom — 'tis no 

more. 
No crier to the polling summons the eager throng ; 
No Tribune breathes the word of might that guards the weak from 

wrong. 
Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath your will. 
Riches, and lands, and power, and state — ye have them: — keep 

them still. 
Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep the purple gown, 
The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown : 
Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is done, 
Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords have 

won. 



VIRGINIA. 157 

Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may not cure, 

Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the poor. 

Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore : 

Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of yore ; 

No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air in dog-star heat ; 

And store of rods for free-born backs, and holes for free-born feet, 

Heap heavier still the fetters ; bar closer still the grate ; 

Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate. 

But, by the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods above, 

Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel love ! 

Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage springs 

From Consuls, and High Pontiffs, and ancient Alban kings ? 

Ladies, who deign not on our paths to set their tender feet, 

Who from their cars look down with scorn upon the wondering 

street, 
Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold, 
And breathe of Capuan odours, and shine with Spanish gold ? 
Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life — 
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife, 
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures, 
The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours. 
Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with pride ; 
Still let the bridegroom's arms infold an unpolluted bride. 
Spare lis the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame, 
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame. 



158 LAYS OF ANCIENT HOME. 

Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair, 
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched 
dare." 



Straightway Virginius led the maid a little space aside, 
To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn and hide, 
Close to yon low dark archway, where, in a crimson flood, 
Leaps down to the great sewer the gurgling stream of blood. 
Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle down : 
Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown. 
And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to swell, 
And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, " Farewell, sweet child ! 

Farewell ! 
Oh ! how I loved my darling ! Though stern I sometimes be, 
To thee, thou know'st, I was not so. Who could be so to thee ? 
And how my darling loved me ! How glad she was to hear 
My footstep on the threshold when I came back last year ! 
And how she danced with pleasure to see my civic crown, 
And took my sword, and hung it up, and brought me forth my 

gown! 
Now, all those things are over — yes, all thy pretty ways, 
Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays ; 
And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile when I return, 
Or watch beside the old man's bed, or weep upon his urn. 



VIRGINIA. 159 

The house that was the happiest within the Roman walls, 
The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's marble halls, 
Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal gloom, 
And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb. 
The time is come. See how he points his eager hand this way ! 
See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon the prey ! 
With all his wit, he little deems, that, spurned, betrayed, bereft, 
Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. 
He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save 
Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave ; 
Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow — 
Foul outrage which thou know'st not, which thou shalt never 

know. 
Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more 

kiss ; 
And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this." 
With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, 
And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died. 

Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath ; 
And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of death ; 
And in another moment brake forth from one and all 
A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the wall. 
Some with averted faces shrieking fled home amain ; 
Some ran to call a leech ; and some ran to lift the slain : 



1G0 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might there be found ; 
And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to stanch the 

wound. 
In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched ; for never truer blow 
That good right arm had dealt in fight against a Volscian foe. 

When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered and sank 

down, 
And hid his face some little space with the corner of his gown, 
Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered nigh, 
And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the knife on high. 
" Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain, 
By this dear blood I cry to you, do right between us twain ; 
And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by me and mine, 
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line ! " 
So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went his way ; 
But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body lay, 
And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan, and then, with steadfast 

feet, 
Strode right across the market-place unto the Sacred Street. 

Then up sprang Appius Claudius : " Stop him; alive or dead ! 
Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head." 
He looked upon his clients ; but none would work his will. 
He looked upon his lictors ; but they trembled, and stood still. 



VIRGINIA. 161 

And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft, 
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. 
And he hath passed in safety unto his woeful home, 
And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done in 
Rome. 

By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, 
And streets and porches round were filled with that o'erflowing tide ; 
And close around the body gathered a little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. 
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown, 
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. 
The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl and sneer, 
And in the Claudian note he cried, " What doth this rabble here ? 
Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward they stray ? 
Ho ! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the corpse away ! " 
Till then the voice of pity and fury was not loud ; 
But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the crowd, 
Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirlwind on the 

deep, 
Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half aroused from sleep. 
But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and strong, 
Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into the throng, 
Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow and of sin, 
That in the Roman Forum was never such a din. 

x 



162 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The wailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief and hate, 

Were heard beyond the Pincian Hill, beyond the Latin Gate. 

But close around the body, where stood the little train 

Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain, 

No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers, and black 

frowns, 
And breaking up of benches, and girding up of gowns. 
'Twas well the lictors might not pierce to where the maiden lay, 
Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from limb that day. 
Right glad they were to struggle back, blood streaming from 

their heads, 
With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in shreds. 
Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip, and the blood left his 

cheek ; 
And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice he strove to 



And thrice the tossing Forum set up a frightful yell ; 

" See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and hide thy shame in 

hell! 
Thou that would'st make our maidens slaves must first make slaves 

of men. 
Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down with the wicked Ten ! " 
And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing through the 

air 
Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the curule chair : 



VIRGINIA. 163 

And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling came ; 
For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but shame. 
Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them right, 
That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well in 

fight, 
Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs, and his wrongs, 
His vengeance, and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs. 
Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan bowed ; 
And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom herself is proud. 
But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, 
And changes colour like a maid at sight of sword and shield. 
The Claudian triumphs all were won within the city-towers ; 
The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but ours. 
A Cossus, like a wild cat, springs ever at the face ; 
A Fabius rushes like a boar against the shouting chase ; 
But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish spite, 
Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs from those who 

smite. 
So now 't was seen of Appius. When stones began to fly, 
He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and smote upon his 

thigh. 
" Band clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray ! 
Must I be torn in pieces ? Home, home, the nearest way ! " 
While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewildered stare, 
Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the curule chair ; 



164 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And fourscore clients on the left, and fourscore on the right, 
Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins girt up for 

fight. 
But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was the throng, 
That scarce the train with might and main could bring their lord 

along. 
Twelve times the crowd made at him ; five times they seized his 

gown ; 
Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got him down : 
And sharper came the pelting ; and evermore the yell — 
" Tribunes ! we will have Tribunes ! " — rose with a louder swell: 
And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail 
When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale, 
When the Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of spume, 
And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of inky gloom. 
One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear ; 
And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with pain and 

fear. 
His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with pride, 
Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to 

side ; 
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door, 
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted gore. 
As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grandson be. 
God send Rome one such other sight, and send me there to see ! 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 



It can hardly be necessary to remind any 
reader that, according to the popular tradition, 
Romulus, after he had slain his grand-uncle 
Amulius, and restored his grandfather Numitor, 
determined to quit Alba, the hereditary domain 
of the Sylvian princes, and to found a new city. 
The Gods, it was added, vouchsafed the clearest 
signs of the favour with which they regarded the 
enterprise, and of the high destinies reserved for 
the young colony. 

This event was likely to be a favourite theme 
of the old Latin minstrels. They would naturally 
attribute the project of Romulus to some 
divine intimation of the power and prosperity 
which it was decreed that his city should attain. 
They would probably introduce seers foretelling 



168 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

the victories of unborn Consuls and Dictators, and 
the last great victory would generally occupy the 
most conspicuous place in the prediction. There 
is nothing strange in the supposition that the 
poet who was employed to celebrate the first 
great triumph of the Romans over the Greeks 
might throw his song of exultation into this 
form. 

The occasion was one likely to excite the 
strongest feelings of national pride. A great 
outrage had been followed by a great retribution. 
Seven years before this time, Lucius Posthumius 
Megellus, who sprang from one of the noblest 
houses of Rome, and had been thrice Consul, was 
sent ambassador to Tarentum, with charge to 
demand reparation for grievous injuries. The 
Tarentines gave him audience in their theatre, 
where he addressed them in such Greek as he 
could command, which, we may well believe, was 
not exactly such as Cineas would have spoken. 
An exquisite sense of the ridiculous belonged 
to the Greek character ; and closely connected 
with this faculty was a strong propensity to 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS, 1G9 

flippancy and impertinence. When Posthumius 
placed an accent wrong, his hearers burst into a 
laugh. When he remonstrated, they hooted him, 
and called him barbarian ; and at length hissed 
him off the stage as if he had been a bad actor. 
As the grave Roman retired, a buffoon, who, 
from his constant drunkenness, was nicknamed 
the Pint-pot, came up with gestures of the 
grossest indecency, and bespattered the sena- 
torial gown with tilth. Posthumius turned round 
to the multitude, and held up the gown, as if 
appealing to the universal law of nations. The 
sight only increased the insolence of the Taren- 
tines. They clapped their hands, and set up a 
shout of lausrhter which shook the theatre. " Men 

o 

of Tarentum," said Posthumius, " it will take not 
a little blood to wash this gown." * 

Rome, in consequence of this insult, declared 
war against the Tarentines. The Tarentines 
sought for allies beyond the Ionian Sea. Pyrrhus, 
king of Epirus, came to their help with a large 

* Dion. Hal. De Legationitras. 
Y 



170 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

army ; and, for the first time, the two great 
nations of antiquity were fairly matched against 
each other. 

The fame of Greece in arms, as well as in arts, 
was then at the height. Half a century earlier, 
the career of Alexander had excited the admira- 
tion and terror of all nations from the Ganges to 
the Pillars of Hercules. Royal houses, founded 
by Macedonian captains, still reigned at An- 
tioch and Alexandria. That barbarian warriors, 
led by barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched 
battle against Greek valour guided by Greek 
science, seemed as incredible as it would now 
seem that the Burmese or the Siamese should, in 
the open plain, put to flight an equal number 
of the best English troops. The Tarentines 
were convinced that their countrymen were 
irresistible in war ; and this conviction had em- 
boldened them to treat with the grossest indig- 
nity one whom they regarded as the representa- 
tive of an inferior race. Of the Greek generals 
then living, Pyrrhus was indisputably the first. 
Among the troops who were trained in the Greek 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS. 171 

discipline, his Epirotes ranked high. His expedi- 
tion to Italy was a turning-point in the history of 
the world. He found there a people who, far in- 
ferior to the Athenians and Corinthians in the fine 
arts, in the speculative sciences, and in all the 
refinements of life, were the best soldiers on the 
face of the earth. Their arms, their gradations 
of rank, their order of battle, their method of in- 
trenchment, were all of Latian origin, and had 
all been gradually brought near to perfection, 
not by the study of foreign models, but by the 
genius and experience of many generations of 
great native commanders. The first words which 
broke from the king, when his practised eye had 
surveyed the Roman encampment, were full of 
meaning : — " These barbarians," he said, " have 
nothing barbarous in their military arrange- 
ments." He was at first victorious ; for his 
own talents were superior to those of the cap- 
tains who were opposed to him ; and the Romans 
were not prepared for the onset of the elephants 
of the East, which were then for the first time 
seen in Italy — moving mountains, with long 



172 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

snakes for hands.* But the victories of the Epi- 
rotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, 
and altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius 
Curius Dentatus, who had in his first consulship 
won two triumphs, was again placed at the head 
of the Roman Commonwealth, and sent to en- 
counter the invaders. A great battle was fought 
near Beneventum. Pyrrhus was completely de- 
feated. He repassed the sea; and the world 
learned with amazement, that a people had been 
discovered, who, in fair fighting, were superior 
to the best troops that had been drilled on the 
system of Parmenio and Antigonus. 

The conquerors had a good right to exult in 
their success ; for their glory was all their own. 
They had not learned from their enemy how to 
conquer him. It was with their own national 
arms, and in their own national battle-array, that 
they had overcome weapons and tactics long 
believed to be invincible. The pilum and the 
broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian 

* Anguimanus is the old Latin epithet for an elephant. Lu- 
cretius, ii. 538. v. 1302. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 173 

spear. The legion had broken the Macedonian 
phalanx. Even the elephants, when the surprise 
produced by their first appearance was over, 
could cause no disorder in the steady yet flexible 
battalions of Rome. 

It is said by Floras, and may easily be be- 
lieved, that the triumph far surpassed in mag- 
nificence any that Rome had previously seen. 
The only spoils which Papirius Cursor and Fa- 
bius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and 
herds, waggons of rude structure, and heaps of 
spears and helmets. But now, for the first time, 
the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned 
a Roman pageant. Plate, fine stuffs, costly furni- 
ture, rare animals, exquisite paintings and sculp- 
tures, formed part of the procession. At the ban- 
quet would be assembled a crowd of warriors and 
statesmen, among whom Manius Curius Dentatus 
would take the highest room. Caius Fabricius 
Luscinus, then, after two Consulships and two 
triumphs, Censor of the Commonwealth, would 
doubtless occupy a place of honour at the board. 
In situations less conspicuous probably lay some 



174 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

of those who were, a few years later, the terror of 
Carthage ; Cains Duilius, the founder of the ma- 
ritime greatness of his country; Marcus Atilius 
Regulus, who owed to defeat a renown far higher 
than that which he had derived from his vic- 
tories; and Caius Lutatius Catulus, who, while 
suffering from a grievous wound, fought the 
great battle of the iEgates, and brought the first 
Punic war to a triumphant close. It is impos- 
sible to recount the names of these eminent 
citizens, without reflecting that they were all, 
without exception, Plebeians, and would, but for 
the ever-memorable struggle maintained by Caius 
Licinius and Lucius Sextius, have been doomed 
to hide in obscurity, or to waste in civil broils, 
the capacity and energy which prevailed against 
Pyrrhus and Hamilcar. 

On such a day we may suppose that the pa- 
triotic enthusiasm of a Latin poet would vent itself 
in reiterated shouts of Io triumphe, such as were 
uttered by Horace on a far less exciting occasion, 
and in boasts resembling those which Virgil, 



THE PROPHECY OP CAPYS. 175 

two hundred and fifty years later, put into the 
mouth of Anchises. The superiority of some 
foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in 
the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with 
disdainful candour ; but pre-eminence in all the 
qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern 
mankind would be claimed for the Romans. 

The following lay belongs to the latest age of 
Latin ballad-poetry. NaBvius and Livius Andro- 
nicus were probably among the children whose 
mothers held them up to see the chariot of 
Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on that 
day might possibly have lived to read the 
first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first 
comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be 
expected, shows a much wider acquaintance 
with the geography, manners, and productions 
of remote nations, than would have been found 
in compositions of the age of Camillus. But 
he troubles himself little about dates; and 
having heard travellers talk with admiration of 
the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the structures 



176 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

and gardens with which the Macedonian kings 
of Syria had embellished their residence on the 
banks of the Orontes, he has never thought of 
inquiring whether these things existed in the age 
of Romulus. 



THE PROPHECY OE CAPYS. 

A LAY SUNG AT THE BANQUET IN THE CAPITOL, ON THE DAY 
WHEREON MAN1US CURIUS DENTATUS, A SECOND TIME CONSUL, 
TRIUMPHED OVER KING PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, IN 
THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLXXIX, 



1. 

Now slain is King Amulius, 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 
Slain is the Pontiff Camers, 

Who spake the words of doom 
" The children to the Tiber, 

The mother to the tomb." 



In Alba's lake no fisher 
His net to-day is flinging : 

On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 
To-day no axe is ringing : 

7, 



178 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

The yoke hangs o'er the manger : 
The scythe lies in the hay : 

Through all the Alban villages 
No work is done to-day. 

3. 

And every Alban burgher 

Hath donned his whitest gown ; 
And every head in Alba 

Weareth a poplar crown ; 
And every Alban door-post 

With boughs and flowers is gay : 
For to-day the dead are living ; 

The lost are found to-day. 

4. 

They were doomed by a bloody king : 

They were doomed by a lying priest: 
They were cast on the raging flood : 

They were tracked by the raging beast 
Raging beast and raging flood 

Alike have spared the prey ; 
And to-day the dead are living ; 

The lost are found to-day. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 179 



The troubled river knew them, 

And smoothed his yellow foam, 
And gently rocked the cradle 

That bore the fate of Rome. 
The ravening she-wolf knew them, 

And licked them o'er and o'er, 
And gave them of her own fierce milk, 

Rich with raw flesh and gore. 
Twenty winters, twenty springs, 

Since then have rolled away ; 
And to-day the dead are living : 

The lost are found to-day. 



6. 

Blithe it was to see the twins, 

Right goodly youths and tall, 
Marching from Alba Longa 

To their old grandsire's hall. 
Along their path fresh garlands 

Are hung from tree to tree ; 
Before them stride the pipers, 

Piping a note of glee. 



180 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



On the right goes Romulus, 

With arms to the elbows red, 
And in his hand a broadsword, 

And on the blade a head — 
A head in an iron helmet, 

With horse-hair hanging down, 
A shaggy head, a swarthy head, 

Fixed in a ghastly frown — 
The head of King Amulius 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 



On the left side goes Remus, 

With wrists and fingers red, 
And in his hand a boar-spear, 

And on the point a head — 
A wrinkled head and aged, 

With silver beard and hair, 
And holy fillets round it, 

Such as the pontiffs wear— 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 181 

The head of ancient Camers, 

Who spake the words of doom : 
" The children to the Tiber ; 

The mother to the tomb." 

9. 

Two and two behind the twins 

Their trusty comrades go, 
Four and forty valiant men. 

With club, and axe, and bow. 
On each side every hamlet 

Pours forth its joyous crowd, 
Shouting lads and baying dogs, 

And children laughing loud, 
And old men weeping fondly 

As Rhea's boys go by, 
And maids who shriek to see the heads, 

Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 

10. 

So they marched along the lake ; 

They marched by fold and stall, 
By corn-field and by vineyard, 

Unto the old man's hall. 



182 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

11. 
In the hall-gate sate Capys, 

Capys, the sightless seer ; 
From head to foot he trembled 

As Romulus drew near. 
And up stood stiff his thin white hair, 

And his blind eyes flashed fire : 
" Hail ! foster child of the wonderous nurse ! 

Hail ! son of the wonderous sire ! 

12. 
" But thou — what dost thou here 

In the old man's peaceful hall ? 
What doth the eagle in the coop, 

The bison in the stall ? 
Our corn fills many a garner ; 

Our vines clasp many a tree ; 
Our flocks are white on many a hill ; 

But these are not for thee. 

13. 
" For thee no treasure ripens 

In the Tartessian mine : 
For thee no ship brings precious bales 

Across the Libyan brine : 



THE PEOPHECY OF CAPYS. 183 

Thou shalt not drink from amber ; 

Thou shalt not rest on down ; 
Arabia shall not steep thy locks, 

Nor Sidon tinge thy gOAvn. 

14. 

" Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 

Rich table and soft bed, 
To them who of man's seed are born, 

Whom woman's milk hath fed. 
Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure, nor for rest ; 
Thou, that art sprung from the War-god's loins, 

And hast tugged at the she-wolf's breast. 

15. 

" From sunrise unto sunset 

All earth shall hear thy fame : 
A glorious city thou shalt build, 

And name it by thy name : 
And there, unquenched through ages, 

Like Vesta's sacred fire, 
Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 

The spirit of thy sire. 



184 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

16. 
" The ox toils through the furrow, 

Obedient to the goad ; 
The patient ass, up flinty paths, 

Plods with his weary load : 
With whine and bound the spaniel 

His master's whistle hears ; 
And the sheep yields her patiently 

To the loud clashing shears. 

17. 

" But thy nurse will hear no master, 

Thy nurse will bear no load ; 
And woe to them that shear her, 

And woe to them that goad ! 
When all the pack, loud baying, 

Her bloody lair surrounds, 
She dies in silence, biting hard, 

Amidst the dying hounds. 

18. 
" Pomona loves the orchard ; 

And Liber loves the vine ; 
And Pales loves the straw-built shed 

Warm with the breath of kine ; 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 185 

And Venus loves the whispers 

Of plighted youth and maid, 
In April's ivory moonlight 

Beneath the chestnut shade. 



19. 



" But thy father loves the clashing 

Of broadsword and of shield : 
He loves to drink the steam that reeks 

From the fresh battle-field : 
He smiles a smile more dreadful 

Than his own dreadful frown, 
When he sees the thick black cloud of smoke 

Go up from the conquered town. 

20. 

" And such as is the War-god, 

The author of thy line, 
And such as she who suckled thee, 

Even such be thou and thine. 
Leave to the soft Campanian 

His baths and his perfumes ; 
Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 

Their dyeing-vats and looms: 

A A 



186 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Leave to the sons of Carthage 

The rudder and the oar : 
Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 

21. 

" Thine, Roman, is the pilum : 

Roman, the sword is thine, 
The even trench, the bristling mound, 

The legion's ordered line ; 
And thine the wheels of triumph, 

Which with their laurelled train 
Move slowly up the shouting streets 

To Jove's eternal fane. 

22. 

" Beneath thy yoke the Volscian 

Shall vail his lofty brow : 
Soft Capua's curled revellers 

Before thy chairs shall bow : 
The Lucumoes of Arnus 

Shall quake thy rods to see ; 
And the proud Samnite's heart of steel 

Shall yield to only thee. 



THE PKOPHECY OF CAPYS. 187 

23. 
" The Gaul shall come against thee 

From the land of snow and night : 
Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 

To the raven and the kite. 

24. 
" The Greek shall come against thee, 

The conqueror of the East. 
Beside him stalks to battle 

The huge earth-shaking beast, 
The beast on whom the castle 

With all its guards doth stand, 
The beast who hath between his eyes 

The serpent for a hand. 
First inarch the bold Epirotes, 

Wedged close with shield and spear; 
And the ranks of false Tarentum 



25. 
" The ranks of false Tarentum 

Like hunted sheep shall fly : 
In vain the bold Epirotes 

Shall round their standards die : 



188 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

And Apennine's grey vultures 

Shall have a noble feast 
On the fat and the eyes 

Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 

26. 

" Hurrah ! for the good weapons 

That keep the War-god's land. 
Hurrah ! for Rome's stout pilum 

In a stout Roman hand. 
Hurrah ! for Rome's short broadsword, 

That through the thick array 
Of levelled spears and serried shields 

Hews deep its gory way. 

27. 

" Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the wan captives 

That pass in endless file. 
Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither 

Hath the Red King ta'en flight ? 
Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 

Is not the gown washed white ? 



THE PKOPHECY OE CAPYS. 189 

28. 

" Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyre, 

And the fine web of Nile, 
The helmets gay with plumage 

Torn from the pheasant's wings, 
The belts set thick with starry gems 

That shone on Indian kings, 
The urns of massy silver, 

The goblets rough with gold, 
The many-coloured tablets bright 

With loves arid wars of old, 
The stone that breathes and struggles, 

The brass that seems to speak ; — 
Such cunning they who dwell on high 

Have given unto the Greek. 



29. 

" Hurrah ! for Manius Curius, 
The bravest son of Rome, 

Thrice in utmost need sent forth. 
Thrice drawn in triumph home* 



190 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Weave, weave, for Manius Curius 

The third embroidered gown : 
Make ready the third lofty car, 

And twine the third green crown 
And yoke the steeds of Rosea 

With necks like a bended bow : 
And deck the bull, Mevania's bull. 

The bull as white as snow. 



30. 



" Blest and thrice blest the Roman 

Who sees Rome's brightest day, 
Who sees that long victorious pomp 

Wind down the Sacred Way, 
And through the bellowing Forum, 

And round the Suppliant's Grove, 
Up to the everlasting gates 

Of Capitolian Jove. 

31. 

" Then where, o'er two bright havens, 
The towers of Corinth frown ; 

Where the gigantic King of Day 
On his own Rhodes looks down ; 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 191 

Where soft Orontes murmurs 

Beneath the laurel shades ; 
Where Nile reflects the endless length 

Of dark-red colonnades ; 
Where in the still deep water, 

Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
Bristles the dusky forest 

Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; 
Where fur-clad hunters wander 

Amidst the northern ice ; 
Where through the sand of morning-land 

The camel bears the spice ; 
Where Atlas flings his shadow 

Far o'er the western foam, 
Shall be great fear on all who hear 

The mighty name of Rome." 



THE END, 






c 



London : 

Printed by A. Spotttswoode, 

New- Street- Square. 



